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THE UNKNOWN'' LIBRARY 

Jti. ENDICOTT’S 

EXPERIMENT 



ADELINE SERGEANT 


Author of Marjory's Mistake f '‘'"Under False Pre- 
tenses f "Sir Anthony's Secret f '•'Jacobi' <i 
Wifef "Roy's Repentance^ etc.^ etc. 



^OiC^ 


NEW YORK 
THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 
31 East 17TH St. (Union Square) 




k 



Copyright, 1894, by 

ADELINE SERGEANT. 


Copyright, 1895, by 

THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 


- All rights reserved. 


, THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
RAHWAY, N. J. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER 

PAGE 

I. 

The Prologue, 

I 

II. 

After -Long Years, 

15 

III. 

Harry Crawford's Wife, 

30 

IV. 

Dr. Endicott’s Success, 

45 

V. 

Failure, 

59 

VI. 

Martin Dale’s Suggestion, 

74 

VII. 

At Lilian’s Grave, . 

87 

VIII. 

Harold’s Guardian, 

102 

IX. 

The Son and the Daughter, 

115 

X. 

A False Step, 

128 

XI. 

The Vicar’s Help, 

141 

XII. 

On Equal Terms, 

154 

XIII. 

The Doctor Lies, 

167 

XIV. 

A Stranger in the Land, 

180 

XV. 

Martin Dale’s Story, 

193 

XVI. 

“ Hold Your Tongue ! ” 

207 

XVII. 

Two Questions, 

220 

XVIII. 

A Second Time, 

234 

XIX. 

A Letter from the Dead, 

246 

XX. 

In Spite of All, 

259 


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DR. ENDICOTT’S EXPERI- 
MENT. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE PROLOGUE. 

HY were they friends ? Why 



^ ^ should men so different in tastes 
and temperament seek each other out, 
and be knit in the bonds of a fellowship 
as close as brotherhood ? That was the 
question that people asked again and 
again when they saw Harry Crawford 
and Stephen Endicott together ; but it 
was not a question that could be easily 
answered. 

They had been at the same college, 
and they had come from the same sleepy 
little country town, where they had 
known each other since their boyish 
days ; but these reasons would have 
been equally potent to sever them, had 
they not been resolved not to be severed. 
For their social positions were different, 
and social position counts for more in 
a quiet country neighborhood than it 
does in Cambridge or London. 


2 


DR. ENDICOTT'S experiment. 


Stephen Endicott’s father had been a 
chemist in the town of Bourneby, while 
Harry Crawford was the only son of a 
country squire. Of the two men, Endi- 
cott, the chemist, was perhaps the 
wealthier ; but old Mr. Crawford had a 
house full of historical associations, and 
a park well-stocked with venerable trees, 
and he was held in great consideration 
by his neighbors, who did not think 
much of Stephen Endicott. 

Yet the two boys drew together. 
They made acquaintance in some fish- 
ing excursion, where young Stephen res- 
cued Harry Crawford from a perilous 
position (“ saved his life,” Harry Craw- 
ford always said), and afterward shared 
his lunch and a basket of trout with him. 
The two were always meeting after that. 
During school terms they were, of 
course, separated ; for Harry went to 
Rugby, and Stephen to the Bourneby 
Grammar School ; but the chief delight 
of their vacations was to meet and com- 
pare experiences, and to explore the 
hidden recesses of every wood and dale 
within a ten-mile radius of the celebrated 
old church of Bourneby town. Possi- 
bly this delight in exploration was the 
bond of union, although it was founded 
upon a different basis in each of the 
boys. 

Stephen was a born naturalist, a 
scientist by nature, a keen observer of 
the world, and something of a genius. 


THE PROLOGUE. 


3 


Harry cared nothing for science, but 
had the instincts of a country gentleman 
of sporting tendencies, who liked an 
outdoor life, and prided himself on his 
knowledge of the habits of furred and 
feathered things. Indeed he used to 
mourn bitterly, during his younger days, 
at the adverse fate which prevented 
him from becoming a gamekeeper by 
profession. The only quarrels that 
arose between the boys proceeded from 
Harry’s desire to kill and Stephen’s to 
observe and classify. It was not that 
Harry was cruel by disposition ; but he 
liked to hunt, and conquer, and slay ; 
while Stephen was inclined to save and 
protect. 

The squire grumbled at first over 
Harry’s predilection for “ the apothe- 
cary’s boy ” ; but he soon ceased to 
protest. He was very indulgent to his 
only son, and would have tolerated a 
much more objectionable person than 
young Stephen Endicott for Harry’s 
sake. But it never became more than 
tolerance. He did not “ take to ” the 
clever lad, whose praises Harry was 
never tired of singing. There was 
something repellent to him in Stephen’s 
very cleverness, in his reticence and his 
self-control. 

Old Mr. Endicott retired from busi- 
ness when Stephen was about fifteen. 
He bought a house which he considered 
a vast improvement on the old one be- 


4 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


hind the shop, and lived there content- 
edly, although it was, after all, rather 
small and dark, with a cheerful prospect 
of a large dissenting chapel and a grave- 
yard in front of it. He would, perhaps, 
have gone further out of the town but 
for Stephen’s desire to be well in reach 
of the grammar school and the masters, 
with whom he was such a favorite. At 
this time he was absorbed in study. 
His father was very proud of him, and 
delighted to think that he was going to 
“ make a gentleman ” of his son. 

At eighteen Stephen took a university 
scholarship, and henceforth his career 
seemed to be decided. There was no 
question about making a tradesman of 
him. He was sent to Cambridge, to the 
very college where the name of Harry 
Crawford, a few months younger, was 
also entered, and henceforth the two 
youths almost lived together. There 
was much less social difference between 
them at Cambridge than at Bourneby. 
Stephen was the richer of the two, but 
the less popular ; he rowed well, but did 
not, like Crawford, spend all his time in 
athletic exercise ; he worked hard and 
distinguished himself, while Crawford 
was continually in scrapes, and narrowly 
escaped rustication more than once. 
Not that he was ever involved in any- 
thing more serious than troubles be- 
gotten of boyish thoughtlessness and 
impetuosity : but these are faults which 


THE PROLOGUE. 


5 


often land a young man in circumstances 
of considerable perplexity. 

However, Harry came safely, though 
not with distinction, through his college 
career, and was as much delighted when 
his friend gained scholarships and uni- 
versity prizes as if they had fallen to his 
own share. Stephen Endicott was uni- 
versally acknowledged to be the best 
man of the year ; and he would have 
had a very good chance of a secure 
position at Cambridge, if he would have 
made up his mind to stay. But he had 
no mind to be a mathematical coach all 
his days, or even to attain a scientific 
professorship. 

He had one decided bent ; one ambi- 
tion ; and he was sometimes disposed 
to grumble that his college life had 
been simply an obstacle to the career 
that he meant to follow. He wanted 
to be a doctor, and a doctor he 
would be. 

His father was not pleased by his 
choice of a profession, which he meas- 
ured by his own experience of country 
practitioners ; but he made no serious 
objection to Stephen’s wishes. The 
young man went to London and Paris ; 
he made his training as complete and as 
perfect as possible before he announced 
to his father that he was now ready to 
start upon his life-work. He had been 
offered an important post in a London 
hospital already ; he hesitated between 


6 DR. endicott's experiment. 


accepting it or devoting himself more 
particularly to scientific research. 

And then the little world which knew 
him was horrified to hear that he had 
accepted a country practice, and settled 
down in a back street at Bourneby. 

He never explained. He did not tell 
his friends that he had come home to 
find his father growing infirm and irri- 
table and lonely, that the old man had 
reproached him for the sacrifices which 
had been made for his education, and 
which had brought so little com'fort to 
the lives of others, and that he, Stephen, 
had answered gently: “Never mind, 
father, I’ve come home now to stay.” 
His reward had lain in the old man’s 
brightening eye, in the knowledge that 
he was making his father happy, and that 
he had the consciousness of doing right. 

With this conviction he was fairly 
content, even though he had hard work, 
scant leisure, and little thanks. One 
disappointment alone awaited him for 
which he was not prepared. He saw 
nothing, or next to nothing, of his old 
friend Harry Crawford. The young 
squire was traveling, or in London, or 
busy with guests at the Hall. He was 
just as cordial and affectionate as ever 
when he met Dr. Endicott, but Stephen 
felt a little grieved now and then to 
think that the days of real intimacy were 
at an end. He was lonelier than he 
knew. 


THE PROLOGUE. 


7 


But the period of waiting — of proba- 
tion, if you like to call it so — was com- 
paratively short. In two years old Mr. 
Endicott died. And three months after- 
ward Harry Crawford called in Red 
Lion Street, where Stephen still lived in 
the corner house opposite the Methodist 
chapel, with the big green graveyard 
laid out like a garden in front of it, and 
asked, with some curiosity, what were 
his plans. 

“ I am not sure that I have any plans,” 
said Dr. Endicott dryly. “ What are 
yours ? They will be more interesting.” 

Harry Crawford looked at him for a 
moment. The two friends were more 
unlike than ever ; and perhaps Mr. 
Crawford of Bourneby Hall had a new 
sense of that unlikeness as he looked. 

Stephen Endicott was a little over 
thirty at this tirhe, and looked older. 
He was a tall, spare, muscular man, with 
not an ounce of superfluous flesh about 
him ; his dark hair was already growing 
thin at the top, and the dark whiskers, 
of regulation cut, on either side of his 
lean, pale face, were thin likewise. His 
forehead was magnificent ; he had a big 
bony nose, a strong jaw, a big thin- 
lipped mouth, deep-set gray eyes, and a 
grave, abstracted expression ; he was 
not a handsome man, certainly, but a 
noticeable one, with a look of rugged 
strength which generally attracted atten- 
tion. 


8 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


It should not be forgotten that he 
had very beautiful hands ; hands that 
were at once strong, supple, and deli- 
cately sensitive ; suggestive of faculties 
which are popularly supposed to belong 
to the artist rather than the scientific 
man. He wore a very shabby study 
coat, and leaned back in his semicircu- 
lar wooden chair, with the air ot a busy 
man interrupted in his business. The 
table at which he was seated was heavy 
and old-fashioned ; probably a dining 
table requisitioned for his own purposes. 
It was well covered with books and 
papers ; but these were all neatly 
arranged ; as were also the numerous 
jars and bottles of specimens that stood 
on shelves round the room. There was 
a very fine microscope, under a glass 
shade, on a stand of its own near the 
window ; some apparatus for experi- 
ments on another table, and a chair or 
two. It was not a sumptuously fur- 
nished apartment. 

Harry Crawford had perched himself 
on a corner of the big center table, and 
was flicking his riding boots with his 
whip. He was not as tall as Stephen, 
and somewhat burlier and heavier in 
build, but he was certainly a much hand- 
somer man. He was a little florid in 
countenance ; his features were well cut, 
his glossy hair of a golden brown, and 
his eyes blue and smiling. It was not an 
unintelligent face ; it showed good sense 


'J HE PROLOGUE. 


9 


and practical power ; probably he would 
make an excellent county magistrate, a 
famous M. F. H., a just landlord, an 
affectionate husband and father. It was 
impossible to know him and not like 
him ; and cold as Stephen Endicott 
might appear, his heart warmed to the 
genial presence, and he was, in Harry’s 
company, a pleasanter — perhaps a better 
— man. 

“ My plans ? ” said Crawford at last, 
with a laugh. “ You’ve heard some- 
thing about them, eh ? ” 

“ I have heard a rumor.” 

“Well, it’s true — at least, I suppose 
you have heard what is true. I’m going 
to be married next month.” 

“ To Miss Norreys ? ” 

“ Yes ; you know her ? ” 

“ Very slightly ; I attended her last 
winter.” 

Harry looked a little alarmed. 
“ What was the matter with her ? I 
hope she was not ill ? ” 

“ It was a little touch of bronchitis. 
I suppose the proper thing is to congra- 
tulate you, Harry ; but ” 

“ What do you mean ? ” said Craw- 
ford, in an annoyed tone. “ I should 
think it was the proper thing to congrat- 
ulate a fellow on marrying the loveliest 
and best girl in the world.” 

“ She is very beautiful and very nice 
in every way, I believe ; but — she is 
not very strong.” 


lO DR. ENDICOTT’s EXPERIMENT. 


“ Is that all ? 

“ Certainly ; isn't it enough ? You 
cannot think that I am unprofessional 
enough to congratulate you on marrying 
a sickly woman, who will want to be 
treated like a hot-house plant. I beg 
your pardon, my dear Crawford, I know 
you don’t like to hear this ; but I must 
warn you that I am not altogether de- 
lighted at your choice of Miss Norreys, 
because I consider her health extremely 
delicate. She will want great care.” 

“ Do you suppose she will not get it ? 
I think you are taking an unfair advan- 
tage of your professional knowledge, 
Endicott. It is too bad to lessen a girl’s 
chances in that way, by calling her 
sickly.” 

“ I do not seem to have lessened 
them. I have not interfered. I must 
say I did wish that you had come to me 
first, Harry. I have often told you that 
I consider the first and best quality of a 
wife is good health.” 

“ Is there anything really wrong with 
Lilian Norreys ? ” 

“ Not that I know of,” said Stephen, 
rather reluctantly. “ I think she has 
no stamina, no physique ; that’s all. I 
think that you will have to be very care- 
ful of her. Winter in the South ; avoid 
anxiety ; let her never be worried. Then 
perhaps she will do very well.” 

“You doctors are such frightful 
croakers,” said Harry, evidently reas- 


THE PROLOGUE. 


II 


sured. “ I’ll take every care in the 
world of her ; you’ll see she will be all 
right. And it is positively absurd ! 
Why, she is the most blooming girl I 
know. Look at her color ! look at her 
eyes ! see how she dances ! Why, 
you’ll tell me I am an invalid before 
long.” 

“ You don’t look much like one, but 
appearances are deceptive,”said Stephen, 
with good humor. Well, take the 
warning I’ve given you, and my con- 
gratulations also. I could not give one 
without the other. Apart from health ” 
— with a grave smile — “ I think that you 
have made an excellent choice. Miss 
Norreys is a pearl among women.” 

** Isn’t she ! ” said Harry, with great 
gusto. “‘A perfect woman, nobly 
planned,’ and all the rest of it. And isn’t 
she lovely ? I never saw anyone half 
so beautiful ; and when I think that she 
is going to be mine — my wife ! I hardly 
know whether I stand on my head or 
my heels, and that’s the fact. Why 
don’t you get married ? You would be 
twice as happy as you are now ; and 
you have nobody to please but your- 
self ! ” 

Stephen smiled. “ I am, perhaps, not 
easily pleased,” he said. 

“ Perfect health is the first requisite, 
of course,” said Harry, in a rallying 
tone ; but Dr. Endicott took the speech 
seriously. 


12 DR. ENDICOTT'S EXPERIMENT. 


*‘Yes, you are right ; I think more of 
that than of beauty. A perfectly sound 
organization ; calm, strong nerves, a 
clear, unclouded brain, a well-balanced 
mind — all these things come with health. 
I have seen a person,” he went on de- 
liberately, “ in whom these qualities are 
combined ; and I think it is highly prob- 
able that I shall marry her.” 

Harry Crawford almost gasped. 
“ Heavens, man ! ” he exclaimed. “ Do 
you mean to dispense with the slight 
preliminary of falling in love ? ” 

Stephen reddened, but there was no 
trace of annoyance on his brow as he 
replied : 

“ I have a great affection for the lady 
of whom I am speaking ; but I doubt 
whether I am capable of the emotions 
that you are experiencing just now, 
Harry. I had something of the sort — 
ten years ago. It is not likely to recur. 
A calm, temperate regard for my wife is 
all that I have to offer her, but I think 
it will suffice to make her happy.” 

“ The deuce it will ! And who is the 
object of your temperate regard ? Do I 
know her ? ” 

“ You may have seen her,” said the 
doctor, in a low voice. ” She is a 
second cousin of mine ; she helped to 
nurse my father when he was ill. She 
is living in the house now with her 
mother.” 

“ I remember her,” said Crawford 


THE PROLOGUE. 


13 


shortly. Ah well ! perhaps you may 
make her happy.” 

He had seen a gentle, dowdy, quiet- 
looking girl, with downcast eyes and a 
round, rosy face, going about the pas- 
sages sometimes ; and he recognized the 
fact that she was the very embodiment of 
Dr. Endicott’s ideal. Perfectly healthy 
— that was the chief thing ! He could 
almost have laughed aloud as he con- 
trasted her mentally with the vision of 
Lilian’s exquisite, ethereal loveliness. 
The one was of earth, he said to himself, 
the other of heaven. 

Stephen understood the slighting in- 
tonation and changed the subject 

“ I am selling the practice here,” he 
said, “ and going up to London.” 

“ Glad to hear it,” said Crawford 
briskly. “ Not for my own sake ; it ’ll 
be an awful loss to me ; but I am sure 
you will do better in town. Going to 
practice ? ” 

“ No, I think not. I have an income, 
you know ; and I want to make certain 
researches.” He hesitated, and as he 
resumed, his voice trembled as it had 
never done when he spoke of marriage. 
“ I have a theory which only wants per- 
fecting to revolutionize the whole treat- 
ment of certain forms of disease. I 
have some experiments to make. I can 
do them better in London than I can 
here.” 

“ Some new discovery imminent, eh ? ” 


14 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


said Crawford, rather flippantly. “ I 
hope it will immortalize you, old man. 
Really important, is it ? ” 

Stephen Endicott’s dark eyes suddenly 
flashed beneath the heavy brows. 
“ There is one form of disease,” he said, 
“which is too often called incurable. 
It seems to me that I have my finger 
on the cure. I do not care whether my 
name is remembered or not, but if I can 
make this discovery, and save the human 
race from this scourge of loathsome, 
agonizing disease, I shall feel that I 
have not lived in vain.” 

The subdued enthusiasm of his man- 
ner impressed Crawford a good deal. 
“What’s the disease?” he asked, with 
some curiosity. 

Dr. Endicott answered shortly, and as 
if he had no wish to discuss the sub- 
ject, “ Cancer.” 

Harry shrugged his shoulders. 
“ Rather you than me,” he said. “ Glad 
I’m not a doctor ! Well, old fellow, I 
hope you’ll be successful. I have the 
greatest possible faith in you, and am 
sure you’ll make a name for yourself. 
Don’t forget us humble folk in the 
country when you are a fashionable 
physician. I shall expect you to doc- 
tor Lilian, you know, if ever she is ill.” 
He rose to go, and Endicott rose also. 
“ You’ll come to the wedding, of course. 
I want you to be the best man.” 

“I’m afraid I can’t,” said Stephen. 


AFTER LONG YEARS. 


15 


“ I shall be in London by that time, and 
probably,” with a nervous laugh, “ mar- 
ried myself.” 

“ So soon? I wish you joy, old man. 
You’ll come and stay with me next 
Christmas ? I wish you could have 
come to the wedding.” 

“ I wish I could,” said Stephen. And 
the two men said good-by with a long, 
warm clasping of hands, and a look in 
which more affection was expressed than 
could have been measured by words. 

But their paths in life were widely 
different. And as it fell out, they did 
not meet again until full ten years had 
passed. 


CHAPTER II. 

AFTER LONG YEARS. 

'T'HE old house in .Harley Street 
^ seemed strangely hot and oppres- 
sive to the country visitor who was ad- 
mitted to its sacred precincts. Outside 
the sun was still shining, and in the 
pleasant home from which he came he 
knew that every window would be open 
to admit the soft summer air and the 
scent of a hundred flowers. Here, the 
windows were shut, or opened only for a 
few inches at the top ; the lamps were 
already lighted, and there was a distinct 
and stifling odor of dinner in the hall. 


i6 DR. endicott's experiment. 


The butler, who had been called to 
answer the stranger’s questions, was 
distinctly unfriendly and offended. 

“ I think, sir,” he said loftily, “ that 
you are, perhaps, in search of Dr. 
Enscott, who lives over the way. The 
names are often confounded. My mas- 
ter very seldom sees patients — especially 
at this hour — without previous appoint- 
ment.” 

He seemed to swell with indignation 
as he spoke : his position as the butler 
of a well-known consulting physician, 
whose fees were steadily rising, seemed 
to have slightly turned his brain. The 
stranger, a big, handsome man, well 
dressed, with an indefinably provincial 
air, broke in angrily upon his speech. 

‘‘ Didn’t I tell you I was an old 
friend ? ” he said. “ Take my card to 
your master at once. If he is at home, 
he will see me.” 

The butler yielded to the imperious 
tone rather than to the words. He si- 
lently ushered the gentleman into a wait- 
ing room and took the card to his master, 
as desired. 

The physician was at dinner. In spite 
of the self-importance of his servant, 
the appointments of Dr. Endicott’s table 
were very simple. There were no elab- 
orate dishes, no expensive fruit and 
flowers, and the wine was almost un- 
touched. Perhaps the doctor did not 
approve of costly fare, or perhaps he 


AFTER LONG YEARS. 


17 


ordered that simple food should be 
chosen for the sake of the one person 
who shared his evening meal. 

For it was a very small and young 
person who was his chief companion, 
namely, his daughter Alice, who was 
just seven years old. His wife had died 
two years ago, and Alice had been sent 
down to dinner ever since. 

It was very bad for her, as the nurses 
and the governesses said. She ought to 
have been in bed by that time. She was 
not allowed to eat much on these occa- 
sions, certainly, and they did not happen 
more than two or three times a week, 
for Dr. Endicott went out a good deal ; 
but the child could not be put to bed 
until after nine o’clock, and that was, 
as everybody knew, a disgracefully late 
hour for a baby of six or seven years old. 

Perhaps Dr. Endicott was selfish in 
the matter. He argued that he was 
busy or out all day, and could only now 
and then secure even this opportunity of 
seeing his little daughter. To one anx- 
ious governess, indeed, he gave a prom- 
ise that, if he saw signs that little Alice 
was growing nervous and delicate, he 
would give up keeping her out of her 
bed after seven o’clock. But at present 
there seemed no likelihood that this de- 
sirable consummation would be reached. 
Alice was beautiful and blooming ; she 
had never had a day’s illness in her life, 
and was an example of the perfect health 


l8 DR. endicott's experiment 


and strength that a doctor’s daughter 
ought properly to represent. 

She made a pretty picture in her 
white dress, with the golden waves of 
hair half concealing her sweet little face, 
whence the great dark eyes looked forth 
with gentle confidence upon a world 
which had always been kind to her. It 
was a curious fact that although neither 
of her parents had been particularly 
handsome, she should have developed a 
rare and winning type of beauty : a type 
which, as Dr. Endicott would have 
triumphantly pointed out, grounded in 
the first place from perfect soundness 
of constitution, health of function, and 
symmetry of limb. She was an example, 
he would say, of what every child ought 
to be. 

She sat beside him at the table as 
gravely as any grown woman could have 
done, and ate the strawberries he gave 
her with perfect content. Now and 
then she addressed a remark to him 
which he answered, but for the most part 
the two did not speak. Dr. Endicott 
was a silent man, and Alice, at seven years 
old, understood him perfectly. 

The butler came in and presented the 
card on a silver salver, in an apologetic 
way. “ The gentleman would not be 
kept out, sir,” he said, as his master 
looked at him inquiringly. “ He said 
you would know him.” And then the 
doctor looked with a frown at the card. 


AFTER LONG YEARS. 


19 


“ Crawford ! ” he exclaimed, his face 
clearing. “ Of course ! of course ! I 
will go to him.” And he rose at once. 
“ In the waiting room, you said ? ” He 
disappeared into the hall ; while little 
Alice sat gravely watching between her 
clouds of golden hair. 

“ Did the gentleman look like another 
doctor, Moseley ? ” she asked anxiously, 
as the butler lingered in the doorway. 

“ No, miss, not at all. Like a gentle- 
man from the country, miss,” said 
Moseley promptly. 

“ Papa has no friends in the country,” 
said Alice, rather as if speaking to her- 
self than to the servant. 

“ Perhaps it is a patient of your papa's, 
miss,” said Moseley. “ Don’t you think 
you had better go to the drawing room, 
miss, until your papa can join you ? ” 

He knew quite well that the child 
went straight to bed from the dinner 
table, but he always kept up the polite 
fiction that she, as mistress of the house, 
occupied the drawing room in the 
evening. 

“ No, thank you, Moseley,” said Alice 
with dignity. “ I shall wait and see 
papa’s friend from the country. Per- 
haps he has little girls and boys of his 
own.” 

.She waited, but not for long, as the 
sounds of returning steps and voices 
were soon heard. 

“ This way, Crawford,” she heard her 


20 DR. ENDICOTT’s EXPERIMENT. 


father say, with unusual cordiality of 
tone. “ We can talk better here ; you 
can’t have had any dinner, and you look 
fagged out.” 

“ London is so confoundedly hot,” 
said the other voice ; and Dr. Endicott 
showed his visitor into the dining room, 
where he made a sudden stop as he 
caught sight of the fairy in white at the 
table. 

“ You here still, Alice ? You had 
better run away,” said her father. “ It 
is my little girl, Harry.” 

Harry Crawford, redder and burlier 
than he used to be, and considerably 
harassed and heated, had still a kindly 
eye and genial smile ; and Alice’s little 
face brightened as she looked up at him 
and held out her hand in her sedate, 
old-fashioned way. 

“ So you are Stephen’s little girl, are 
you ? ” said the newcomer. “ Give me 
a kiss, my dear. I wish I had a little 
girl, too. I’ve only a boy, a year or two 
older than you, I think. Perhaps your 
father will bring you down to see him 
one of these days.” 

He looked after her wistfully when 
the door was closed and she had de- 
parted to the nursery. 

“ She’s a beautiful little thing, 
Stephen. I suppose her mother ' 

“ Her mother died two years ago,” 
said Dr. Endicott, gravely. 

“ Ah ! ” with a sort of a groan. 


AFTER LONG YEARS. 


21 


“These things come to all of us, don’t 
they ? ” He turned and grasped Endi- 
cott’s arm. “ You will be able to feel 
for me. You know what it is to lose 
one who is dear to you — to feel that you 
can do nothing — absolutely nothing. 
You will be able to understand as no- 
body else can do.” 

He wiped the moisture from his fore- 
head. 

“ Don’t ring, Endicott ; don’t order 
anything for me. I couldn’t touch it. 
I’ll take a glass of claret and a biscuit. 
Phew ! This London of yours suffo- 
cates me. I wonder how you can live 
here — and bring up a child, too. I 
could not sleep in town. I shall take 
the night mail back to Peterborough.” 

“ You would be better for a substan- 
tial meal, Harry,” said the doctor. “ A 
little soup and a cutlet, eh ? You would 
'feel refreshed then. When did you eat 
last, I wonder ? Now, don’t protest. 
You have something to tell me ; but I 
will not hear it until you have had some 
food.” 

Mr. Crawford protested again, but 
more feebly. Possibly he felt that there 
was some truth in what his friend said ; 
and with a few half-inarticulate grunts 
and groans he subsided into quietness, 
and ate the meal that was provided with 
tolerable appetite. During this inter- 
lude Stephen Endicott leaned back in 
the chair and examined his old friend 


22 DR. ENDICOTT’s EXPERIMENT. 


with attention. Different as they had 
always been, the difference was now 
more strongly marked than ever. 

Dr. Endicott was lean, pale, intellec- 
tual-looking ; and the refinement of his 
traits was very strongly marked. His 
hair had retreated from his high fore- 
head, and was a little thin, but it was 
still dark, although his whiskers were 
slightly touched with gray. He was 
habitually grave, but his manner was 
less cold than it had been in his youth. 
Perhaps the loss of his wife and the love 
of his child had softened his nature and 
subdued his heart. 

His friend, Harry Crawford, had 
broadened and reddened, as men of his 
type are apt in middle life to do. His 
handsome features had grown a little 
coarse, his blue eyes had sunk, his short, 
curly hair had lost its gloss and color ; 
altogether, he had the puffy, florid look 
of a man hopelessly “out of condition,” 
and destined by the life he had chosen 
to grow more and more so. 

It was easy to see how self-pleasing, 
how soft and complacent had been the 
course of his days. He had known 
little of care and trouble. He had been 
wealthy ; or had at least lived as if he 
were wealthy. He had forgotten how 
to think for himself, and, more than all, 
how to think for others. And to this 
man some crisis had arrived ; something 
had happened which had disorganized 


AFTER LONG YEARS. 


23 


the whole of his life. So much Dr. En- 
dicott could see at a glance ; and while 
the squire consumed his meal the 
physician took in every detail of his 
appearance, and wondered, somewhat 
indifferently, whether his agitation 
meant illness, loss of money, or domes- 
tic bereavement. But until the meal 
was finished he would not hear. 

When Mr. Crawford had pushed away 
his plate and had drained his glass of 
its last drop of iced whisky and soda, 
which the doctor had compounded for 
him, he turned to his old friend with an 
uncertain look, and breathed a heavy 
sigh. 

“ Well, well \ ” he said. “ You were 
right,. Stephen ; I feel better now. IVe 
touched nothing since morning, and I'm 
not the sort that can do without regular 
meals. But I was thoroughly upset. I 
have not got over the shock yet, and 
never shall — I never shall ! ” 

“ Come into my study,” Stephen said 
easily. “ We shall be cooler there. 
This room is a little too hot ; it’s a sul- 
try night.” 

“Yes, by Jove! it is!” Crawford 
answered, rising from his chair. “ How 
you can live in London passes my com- 
prehension. You were brought up in 
the country, just as I was, and liked it 
even better ” 

“My profession keeps me in London, 
you see,” said the doctor. They were 


24 DR. ENDICOTT^S EXPERIMENT. 


crossing the hall as he spoke, and he 
was glad to keep his friend’s attention 
fixed for a little while on casual matters. 
The man’s half subdued excitement, 
threatening now and then to break out 
in some ungovernable manner, had put 
him upon his guard. “ I should not 
have much chance if I lived in a small 
country place, far from hospitals and 
laboratories, should I? My profession 
is mylife — you can hardly understand 
that, I dare say.” 

He ushered the visitor into his study, 
a room that was comfortable enough, 
but which seemed painfully close and 
dark to the country squire. He looked 
round with half concealed contempt on 
the velvet chairs and sofa, the thick 
Turkey carpet, the heavy chenille cur- 
tains, the black marble of the mantel- 
piece, the bronzes and heavy time-piece 
with which it was decorated. Dr. Endi- 
cott turned up the gas, and wheeled a 
big easy-chair toward his guest. Harry 
Crawford dropped into it with a sigh. 
Oh, for a breath of fresh country air, 
for the scent of roses, and the sweet 
tones of a woman’s voice ! The remem- 
brance brought back a crushing sense 
of trouble, and quite unconsciously he 
groaned aloud. 

Dr. Endicott, with his back to him, 
took no apparent notice. He was 
reaching down a box of cigars from an 
upper shelf in an ebony cupboard. 


AFTER LONG YEARS. 


25 


“ You smoke, Harry ? he said 
gently. “ So do I sometimes, in this 
private sanctum of mine. This is not 
my consulting room ; I can’t have cigars 
there, you know. Want a match ? ” 

“ Thanks,” said Crawford absently. 
He lighted his cigar and took a puff or 
two, while the doctor seated himself in 
a wooden chair near the writing table 
and made a cigarette for himself. It 
did not escape his notice that after the 
first minute or two Crawford let his 
cigar go out, and held it in his hand as 
he stared into vacancy. It was a bad 
sign. The time had come, the doctor 
decided, when Crawford had better 
speak. 

“ Well,” he said kindly, “ there is 
something you want to tell me, I think, 
Harry. Can I be of any use to you ? ” 

Crawford stirred uneasily. “ I don’t 
know,” he said, in a husky voice. “ I 
hope to God you can ! If anyone can, 
it’s you.” 

Stephen Endicott was a trifle sur- 
prised, a trifle moved, and he was not 
often moved or often surprised. He 
paused a moment before he spoke. 

“ Do you want my professional help ? ” 
he asked. 

“ I’ll tell you the whole thing,” said 
Crawford, with curious vehemence. “ I 
don’t know whether any human being 
can do anything at all ; but if any man 
can, you are the man. I’ve heard and 


26 DR. ENDICOTT S EXPERIMENT. 


read enough about you to know that. 
Besides, I remember a talk we had to- 
gether — the last time I saw you ” 

“ It is your wife, then,” said the doc- 
tor quietly. 

“ Yes, confound you,” — he would 
have used a stronger word but for the 
steady look in Endicott’s eye, — “ you 
told me then that she was delicate, and 
that she required care ” 

“ And you have not given her that 
care ? ” 

“ I’ve done my best. Before Heaven, 
I swear I’ve done my best. I took her 
abroad every winter ; I gave her every- 
thing she wanted. I did my best to 
make her happy. And she was happy. 
I’ll stake my life on it. She loved me 
and I loved her, God knows ; and then 
there was the child to brighten her life, 
even if I didn’t satisfy her ” 

He broke off suddenly and bowed 
his head on his hands, planting his 
elbows on both knees, and letting his 
extinct cigar fall unheeded to the 
ground. Endicott looked at him keenly, 
and waited, without speaking, for a little 
while. The man’s heavy breathing 
could be heard very distinctly in the 
quiet room. 

“ Do you mean to say that you have 
not satisfied her, then ? ” the physician 
asked. 

Crawford writhed as if he had been 
stung. ‘‘ I love her ; you know that,” 


AFTER LONG YEARS. 


27 


he growled. Then, in a more passion- 
ate voice : “ It was not my fault if we 
lost money, and she was worried and 
anxious over business matters. How 
could I help that ? I did everything for 
the best, as far as 1 knew ; I had no 
idea that she was too delicate — too finely 
strung — to bear the ordinary trials of 
life. But that is what the doctor tells 
me now ; that I’ve let her exert herself 
and bother herself too much, and that 
she has no strength left, and — and all 
the rest of it.” 

“ If there is no definite disease ” 

the doctor began cautiously, but Craw- 
ford interrupted him. 

“ There is definite disease. That is 
why I have come to you. They say it 
is cancer.” 

A pause followed. Crawford had 
covered his eyes with one hand. The 
doctor drew in his lips. Then he put 
a few professional questions, quickly 
uttered, and as quickly answered, and 
succeeded by another silence. 

“ It seems to me,” said Endicott at 
last, with bent brows and closed eyes, 
“ that you are not telling me everything, 
Crawford. Was there no exciting cause ? 
You say that the complaint has never 
appeared in the family before, and 
yet ” 

“ There was an exciting cause,” said 
Crawford sullenly. “ She was hurt by 
me. I did not mean to hurt her, but 


28 DR. ENDICOTT'S EXPERIMENT, 


I pushed her roughly aside once — I 
had had some heavy losses on the turf, 
and I suppose something I had taken 
had got into my head. She spoke 
to me and I flung her off ; she fell up 
against a sharp piece of furniture and 
bruised herself ; that was how it began.” 

Dr. Endicott showed no emotion. 
Crawford felt, with a sudden reaction of 
feeling, that he would have liked his old 
friend better if he had expressed in- 
dignation or disgust. He only said 
meditatively : 

“ I fancied that there must be some 
such proximate cause. Of course, where 
there is no predisposition to the disease, 
a blow or a bruise would not develop it. 
I have had a case of the same kind, 
where a drunken husband ” . 

“Good Heaven ! ” shouted Crawford, 
springing up, “do you class me with 
your drunkfen husbands ? Do you think 
I am in the habit of — of — of ” 

He could not finish his sentence, but 
stood quivering with rage and shame. 
Stephen Endicott looked at him in his 
cold, steady way, but a gentler tone 
came into his voice as he replied : 

“ Forgive me, Harry : I had forgotten 
— I was thinking of the matter purely 
from a medical point of view. Of course 
I know, I understand, that you love 
your wife.” 

“ I would give my soul for her — my 
life for hers,” broke forth the man. “ I 


AFTER LONG YEARS. 


29 


would never have lifted my hand, if I 
had known — if I had realized what I 
was doing. And now, they say, she 
must die for it, and I — I have killed her.” 

He dropped his face into his hands 
and sobbed aloud — with the hard, tear- 
ing, difficult sobs which only come from 
a strong man in agony of pain. Stephen 
Endicott regarded him for a few mo- 
ments with the cold, dispassionate gaze 
of one far removed from such exhibitions 
of emotional weakness ; but by slow de- 
grees a kindlier gleam came into his 
gray eyes, and finally he rose and laid 
one hand upon Crawford’s shoulder. 

There may be hope yet,” he said. 
“ Don’t despair, old man ; don’t give 
way. I will do what I can.” 

“ If she can be saved,” cried Craw- 
ford brokenly, “ God knows how grate- 
ful I shall be.” 

“ I will do my best,” the doctor an- 
swered. “Pull yourself together, man; 
while there is life, there is hope. I must 
see your wife as soon as possible ; and 
when I have seen her, I will give you 
my opinion.” 

“ When will you see her ? Will you 
come back with me — to-night ? ” 

“ Not to-night — it is too late. Be- 
sides, I have other patients. No,” — 
after a moment’s deliberation, — “ I can- 
not leave town until to-morrow after- 
noon. It will be Saturday — I will spend 
Sunday with you, if you like.” 


30 DR. endicott's experiment. 


CHAPTER III. 

HARRY Crawford’s wife. 

^R. CRAWFORD slept at his friend’s 
house, and departed early next 
morning, leaving Stephen to follow 
later in the day. He was much more 
cheerful by daylight than he had been 
in Dr. Endicott’s study when telling the 
story of his need, but the doctor was 
not well pleased with his appearance. 
There was an air of self-indulgence, a 
want of self-restraint about the man, 
which suggested only too clearly the 
course of a reckless and jovial life ; the 
first promise of his youth had died 
away, blighted by license and extrava- 
gance. He was good at heart, full of 
noble impulses which came to nothing, 
and which made him therefore appear 
worse than craftier men ; open, honest, 
violent, fond of company, excitement, 
and good living ; and unlikely, as 
Endicott said to himself while looking 
at his florid face and bloodshot eyes — 
unlikely to attain even the ordinary 
limits of man’s age, the appointed 
threescore years and ten. 

“ You’ll come as soon as you can get 
away, Stephen ? ” said Crawford anx- 
iously. “ If you telegraph. I’ll send the 
carriage to the station. We still keep 
a trap or two, although we are on the 


HARRY CRAWFORD'S V/TFE. 


31 


verge of ruin, you know. I feel every 
confidence in you. If you can cure 
Lilian ” 

“ Until I have seen her I can give no 
opinion, one way or the other,” said Dr. 
Endicott, with impatience. “ I shall be 
very happy to do what I can ; but you 
tell me you have had men like Harvey 
and Winter already, and that they give 
small hope — so what can you expect me 
to do ? ” 

“ But — but it is your special subject 
— you have a specific,” stammered 
Crawford, with such blank dismay in 
his face that the doctor would have 
laughed aloud had the occasion been 
less serious. 

“ I have no specific,” he said, “ but I 
have a theory, which is not held, and 
indeed not understood, by any doctor 
in Europe save myself. It can only be 
tried in certain cases, and, I believe, at 
certain stages of the malady. Let us 
say no more about it at present, Craw- 
ford ; for until I have myself seen and 
examined your wife I can give you no 
reason for hoping that my verdict may 
differ from that of men like Winter and 
Alick Harvey.” 

“Ah, you don’t want to raise my 
hopes too high, but I believe in you in 
spite of yourself,” said Crawford, with a 
sanguine insistence on his own view 
which distinctly irritated Stephen Endi- 
cott. “ I have heard wonderful stories 


32 DR. endicott’s experuvtent. 


of your skill. We may expect you to- 
night ?” 

“Certainly.” 

“ It will be a little change for you. I 
am not sorry to force you away from 
this hothouse for a night or two. Lon- 
don suffocates me. I wonder that you 
can endure it. And your child, too ! 
Stephen, can’t you bring her down with 
you till Monday ? Lilian adores chil- 
dren ; she would be delighted to see 
your little one.” 

“ I could not think of it,” said Dr. 
Endicott hastily. ‘‘ On such short no- 
tice, with no invitation from your wife, 
and to a house where there is sick- 
ness ? You are too hospitable, my 
dear Harry. Besides, the child is quite 
well, and would only be unsettled by a 
change.” 

“ Nonsense,” said Mr. Crawford. 
“ How could she be unsettled by a day 
in the country ? The house is big 
enough to hold a dozen children, and 
there is the garden for her to play in. 
My own boy is at home, and his nursery 
arrangements are still in existence, with 
old Mrs. Abel at their head. Don’t you 
remember old Abel, and how she tyran- 
nized over me in my youth ? She wor- 
ships Harold by way of a change, and 
your little sprite would be quite safe in 
her charge.” 

“I know that,” said Stephen, with a 
reluctant smile. “ But I think it would 


HARRY Crawford’s wife. 


33 


be better not, thank you. It is very 
kind of you, but ” 

“ Put it to her little ladyship herself," 
said Crawford, who had caught sight of 
a small white figure in the hall. He 
strode to the half-open door of the 
dining room, where he and his host had 
breakfasted, and called to her : “ Come 
here, little one, and decide this knotty 
point for yourself." 

Endicott frowned and shrugged his 
shoulders, but did not interfere. Per- 
haps in the face of Crawford’s impul- 
sive action he felt interference impos- 
sible. He leaned back in his chair and 
listened, while the red-faced, bluff, and 
genial country squire, who had been his 
boyhood’s friend, addressed himself to 
his little daughter. 

“Now, my dear, tell me what you 
would like. Will you come with your 
father this afternoon to see me ? I live 
in the country, where there are trees 
and flowers and fruit, you know, and all 
sorts of nice things, and a little boy for 
you to play with, and a pony and dog 
and cat " 

“ Oh, come, Crawford, that isn’t fair," 
said Endicott, with a slight smile. “ You 
are piling up attractions to an irresist- 
ible extent. My wishes will have no 
effect after your wbrds." 

“ You would like to come, would you 
not, little fairy ? ’’ said Crawford, smiling 
also. 


34 dr. endicott's experiment. 


The child looked from one to the 
other, with the wistful gravity of expres- 
sion which sometimes characterized her 
sweet little face. She must have un- 
derstood more of their conversation 
than they had expected, for she said at 
last, with an appealing glance toward 
her father : 

“ Don’t you want me to go, papa ?” 

“ How did the monkey find that out, 
I wonder ? ” muttered Crawford, in the 
depths of his brown beard ; but Dr. 
Endicott smiled and stretched a hand 
toward his little girl. 

“ Would you not rather stay at home 
with Miss Moore, Alice ? She will be 
quite lonely without you.” 

“ Will she ? ” said Alice wistfully. 
“ Don’t you think she would like to go 
and see her friends, papa ? I should 
like to go where the flowers grow, and 
have someone to play with.” 

“ You are conquered, Stephen,” said 
his friend. “ Let her come ; she will be 
no trouble, and we will make her enjoy 
herself. Lilian will be delighted.” 

Endicott yielded, rather against his 
will. The old strain of independence 
was strong in him, and he had a little 
jealous fear lest his child should be 
patronized as he himself had been 
patronized in his youth. He would 
rather have kept her away from Bourne- 
by, where his origin was remembered 
and his father’s shop could still be 


HARRY Crawford's wife. 35 


pointed out. But Crawford had put his 
invitation in a way that could not easily 
be refused. 

He was accompanied on his journey, 
therefore, by little Alice, who sat bolt 
upright in the railway carriage, and 
gazed at the fleeting landscape which 
they traversed with ecstatic eyes. She 
was a quiet child, but capable of keen 
enjoyment. Her father looked at her 
now and then with half a smile and half 
a sigh. The very intensity with which, 
child as she was, she suffered and en- 
joyed, sometimes roused in him a fear 
for her future happiness. 

He was surprised to find himself so 
quick to recognize the roadside stations, 
the very outlines of the trees, the dis- 
tant spires of the churches. There was 
one old church for which Bourneby was 
especially famous ; it had a great tower, 
which stood up like a beacon and could 
be seen for miles around ; he had no 
idea that his heart would beat like a 
sledge-hammer when he caught sight of 
it again. He called to little Alice to 
look at it — and she gazed silently, glanc- 
ing at his face now and then, with a 
comprehension beyond her years. Then 
she put up her hand and laid it against 
his cheek. 

“ You are fond of it, papa ! Why 
didn't you bring me here before ? " she 
said. 

Dr. Endicott put his arms round her. 


36 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


and held her close to him, but he went 
on looking out of the window in silence. 
There were many thoughts busy in his 
brain. Among others a sudden fear for 
the welfare of this woman-child of his, 
who was already beginning to partake 
of the troubles of others and to divine 
by unerring instinct the feeling of those 
she loved. It was a bad sign in his 
eyes ; for it meant that she was a sensi- 
tive plant, one of those delicate and 
tender souls whom a rough word and 
a cold look will blight and desolate. 
Even the most fortunate life in the 
world could, perhaps, not insure her 
perfect happiness. Whence had she 
stolen such a nature ? For he knew 
that her mother had not been made of 
this rare substance ; and he scarcely 
realized the fact that little Alice, the 
lovely child with the golden hair, had 
inherited his own keen intellect, his 
quick perception, and, superadded to 
these qualities, a loving heart. 

Mr. Crawford had sent a carriage to 
meet his friend, and Endicott was glad 
of it for Alice’s sake. The drive through 
the soft balmy air, the gathering dark- 
ness and stillness, made the little girl 
sleepy. She was scarcely to be roused 
when the Hall was reached, and could 
only be handed over to the care of a 
rosy-cheeked maid and a buxom old 
woman in a white cap, to be put to bed 
as soon as possible. Mrs. Crawford 


HARRY CRAWFORD^S WIFE. 


37 


was, of course, not visible, and Endicott 
therefore saw only Harry Crawford and 
his little boy Harold. The two men 
sat up talking late into the night, but 
medical matters were not discussed ; by 
common consent the friends ignored 
them and talked on art, politics, litera- 
ture — anything which had no possible 
bearing upon the science of healing. 

Stephen Endicott had long ago re- 
nounced the pleasures of country life, 
but he was by no means insensible to 
them, and when he awoke on Sunday 
morning to hear the church-bells ring- 
ing, and to feel the scent of the roses 
and the cool breath of the summer wind 
coming in at the open window, he felt a 
sensation of exquisite delight. He drew 
a long breath as he rose and looked out 
at the greenery of the park, the bril- 
liance of the flower garden, the misty 
blueness of the distant hills. “ A man 
might be very happy in a place like this,” 
he said to himself. It seemed almost 
a pity that so fair a demesne belonged 
to a man like Crawford, with his sport- 
ing tastes, his low aims, his slightly 
brutal tendencies. Endicott wondered, 
half contemptuously, whether his wife 
had grown like him. 

He did not see her until noon. The 
children had gone to church with the 
nurse ; Crawford had been invisible ever 
since his after-breakfast smoke, and 
Endicott had lounged dreamily about 


38 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


the velvet sward of the lawn, reading a 
medical journal underneath the trees. 
At twelve he was summoned to the 
house and shown into Mrs. Crawford’s 
boudoir, a cool, pleasant room, opening 
by glass doors into a garden, shaded by 
silken draperiesand odorous with flowers. 
Masses of cut roses and lilies filled the 
old Indian china bowl ; the air was 
heavy with the fragrance and the sounds 
of rustling leaves, and the song of the 
birds floated in through the windows 
upon a gentle breeze. Here Mrs. Craw- 
ford spent a portion of the day, when 
she was well enough to leave her own 
room ; and here she reclined in a long 
low chair, her fragile form supported by 
cushions, and draped in softest silks and 
laces — a lovely woman still, in spite of 
the traces of weakness and disease. 

Stephen Endicott started at the sight. 
He had seen her when she was a delicate 
girl, under his medical care ; he had 
caught passing glimpses of her when she 
had recovered her health and was en- 
gaged to Harry Crawford ; but either 
her beauty had not then been fully 
developed, or his eyes were holden and 
he could not see. Now — now that he 
was not preoccupied by ambition and 
bereavement, and anxiety — now that he 
had mixed freely in society, and knew 
what beauty and refinement really meant, 
he was fain to acknowledge to himself, 
with rather a vexed amazement^ that 


HARRY CRAWFORD'S WIFE. 39 


Crawford had won for his wife a woman 
of the rarest loveliness. Part of this 
loveliness might possibly be the effect of 
disease, but it had not a painful character, 
chiefly on account of the extreme sweet- 
ness of her expression and the absence 
of anything like mournfulness. The 
blue veins showed too plainly upon her 
forehead, but they were partly hidden 
by softly waving strands of golden hair ; 
her violet eyes were hollowed by pain 
and sickness, but they were still bright 
and beautifully shaped, with long silken 
lashes, much darker than her hair. Her 
cheeks, although thin, had not lost their 
color, and, languid and weak as she was, 
her manner was full of grace and charm. 
She gave the doctor her hand, and 
smiled with, it seemed to him, an al- 
most terrible sweetness. What was the 
woman made of, he asked himself, who 
could confront disease and death with 
so undisturbed a countenance ? 

The question was beyond him, but he 
read its answer afterward in her readi- 
ness to save her husband from remorse, 
and to lighten his sorrow by the conceal- 
ment of her own sufferings. 

“ It is very kind of you to come and 
see me. Dr. Endicott,” she said. “ I 
know how busy you must be. But 
Harry is so good, so anxious about me ! 
and he has such entire confidence in 
you.” 

Dr. Endicott bowed and murmured 


40 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


some acknowledgment of the compli- 
mentary speech. 

“ And I am so glad that you have 
brought your little girl. I saw her in 
the garden from my window, and I 
longed to speak to her. By and by she 
will come in with Harold and pay me a 
little visit, I hope.” 

“ I can only trust that she is not in 
the way,” said the doctor. “ Your hus- 
band is, as you perhaps know, a very 
old friend of mine, and I could not re- 
sist his invitation. Alice does not often 
get the chance of a day in the country.” 

“ She must stay for more than a day,” 
said Mrs. Crawford. Then she leaned 
back, and looked for a moment at her 
husband, who was standing beside her 
chair. “ Leave me with Dr. Endicott 
for a little while, Harry,” she said softly. 
“I want to talk to him.” 

Mr. Crawford cast a glance at the 
doctor. “ Must I go ? ” he asked help- 
lessly. “ Can’t I stay. I am so 
anxious ” 

“ I will come to you as soon as I have 
had a little talk with Mrs. Crawford,” 
said Stephen reassuringly; “but you had 
better go just now.” 

He yielded, though with a look of 
misery that went to his wife’s heart, for 
she called him toward her and drew him 
down' to kiss her lips before he went 
away. The loving smile, the exquisite 
sweetness, lingered upon her face until 


HARRY Crawford’s wife. 


41 


he had left the room. But then it van- 
ished suddenly, and the eyes that she 
turned upon Dr. Endicott were shining 
and cold as steel, the gracious lips were 
set close in an expression of stern 
resolve. 

“ Now, doctor,” she said, “ tell me the 
worst.” 

Harry Crawford walked up and down 
the terrace in front of the drawing-room 
windows until he was tired. He paused 
more than once at the side door which 
led to his wife’s rooms, wondering 
whether he might not penetrate to her 
side and hear the doctor’s verdict. But 
again and again he drew back. He was 
not a man of very fine fiber or very deli- 
cate perception, but he knew better than 
to return when his wife had told him to 
stop away. 

It seemed an eternity to him before 
Endicott appeared. The doctor came 
with a quick step through one of the 
drawing-room windows, and looked 
about him with the air of a person seek- 
ing for another. With a half articulate 
cry Crawford came up to him, and put 
his hand upon his arm. 

“ Ah, there you are ! ” said Stephen. 
“ I was looking for you. I have some- 
thing to say.” 

“ Tell me — quick ; don’t beat about 
the bush. Will she die ? ” 

“ How on earth can I tell ? Is that 
in my hands ? ” 


42 DR. ENDICOTT S EXPERIMENT. 


“ Yes, it is. Don’t trifle with me, 
Stephen. For God’s sake save her, if 
you can. Is it life or death ? Yes or 
no ! ” 

Stephen looked at him for a moment 
with an indescribable expression, as of 
a man brought face to face with some- 
thing which he did not understand. In 
truth Harry Crawford’s nature was a 
puzzle to him. Here was a man, he 
would have said, who had selfishly, reck- 
lessly thrown away his fortune and his 
happiness, who could not even restrain 
himself from physical violence toward 
the woman that he loved, and was never- 
theless agitated beyond concealment, 
driven almost to the verge of despair, 
because this woman was attacked with a 
possibly mortal sickness. The two states 
of mind were perfectly compatible, but 
they did not seem so to the more com- 
posed and stable-minded Stephen Endi- 
cott. He had a certain contempt for 
the man who attempted thus to war with 
fate. It was not for the sake of Harry 
Crawford, or of his old friendship, that 
'he was willing to do what he could for 
Lilian Crawford’s life. 

“ I cannot answer your question by a 
mere yes or no,” he said, rather coldly. 
“ I have several things to say. To be- 
gin with — it may relieve your mind to 
hear that I do not think so badly of 
Mrs. Crawford as the other doctors do.” 

“ Thank God ! thank God ! ” The 


HARRY CRAWFORD^S WIFE. 


43 


Strong man trembled like a leaf. He 
put his hand over his eyes and turned 
his head away. Endicott paused a little, 
in order to give him time to recover 
himself, and then went on remorselessly : 

“ I agree with them as to the nature 
of the disease, but I do not think that it 
lias made as much progress as they seem 

to think. It is like this, you see ” 

And then Dr. Endicott entered upon 
details of a technical kind, to which 
Harry Crawford listened with a slightly 
bewildered expression upon his honest 
face. 

“ Yes,” he said at length. But the 
question is, if you have found out the 
mischief, can you remedy it?” 

Dr. Endicott paused again. “ That is 
a grave question,” he said. “But if you 
ask me, and if you will trust her entirely 
to my hands, Crawford, I believe I can.” 

His hand was seized and wrung as 
perhaps it had never been wrung before. 
“ God bless you ! I shall never be able 
to tell you what I feel, Stephen. You 
will save me from utter despair. If she 
had died, I felt as if — as if I must die, 
too.” 

“ Nonsense,” said Stephen, not un- 
kindly. “You are growing morbid 
about the matter. I think I can save 
your wife, or at least prolong her life 
for many years ; but it does not do to 
be too sanguine ; yet I have good hopes, 
if I may try my ovtrn treatment.” 


44 DR- endicott’^s experiment. 


“ Try anything ! I have perfect faith 
in you.” 

“ You must remember, Harry, that it 
will be something of an experiment. I 
have never before had the chance of 
treating the ailment at this stage accord- 
ing to my own theory. I may fail. But 
if I try at all, I must have your word 
that you trust her entirely to me, and 
will allow my instructions to be carried 
out to the letter,” 

‘‘ I trust you entirely, and you may 
treat her as you please. The other fel- 
lows have given her up ; you are the 
only doctor that gives a ray of hope. 
I thought you would.” 

“ Very well,” said Dr. Endicott, after 
a moment’s pause. “ I accept the case. 
It will want great care, great watchful- 
ness. Either she must come to Lon- 
don, or ” 

“ London ! That oven ! It would 
kill her.” 

“ Or I,” said Endicott coolly, “ must 
come here.” 

Harry Crawford stared at him without 
speaking. 

“ I was going to Switzerland for a 
month,” pursued the doctor, “ but if 
you can put me up, I’ll stay here in- 
stead. With a month’s care and watch- 
ing, I shall be able to tell how the case 
is likely to go.” 

“ Endicott, I can never thank you 
enough, but it’s impossible ; I — I ” 


DR. ENDICOTT’s success. 


45 


He stopped embarrassed ; the color 
spread from his ruddy cheeks to the 
roots of his light hair. “Your fees” — 
he managed at last to stammer out, as 
an explanation of his opposition to the 
doctor’s plan. 

Endicott raised his eyebrows. 
“ Fees ! Don’t be a fool, Harry ! Of 
course, I shall treat Mrs. Crawford for 
the sake of the interest I take in her 
case, and for nothing else. Say no more 
about it ; the thing’s arranged.” 


CHAPTER IV. 

DR. ENDICOTT’s SUCCESS. 

j_| ARRY CRAWFORD was not alto- 
^ ^ gether disposed to accept his friend’s 
offer of service as readily as Dr. Endi- 
cott desired. Indeed, he made more 
objections than Stephen liked, and the 
physician at last turned crusty in man- 
ner, and insinuated somewhat sourly 
that Crawford did not care whether his 
wife was cured or not. This remark 
brought Mr. Crawford to his bearings, 
and he was obliged to submit to the 
sacrifice of Stephen’s autumn holiday, 
out of sheer shame at seeming to have 
undervalued the help that he could 
bring. 

Mrs. Crawford, too, was quite amazed 


46 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


and horrified at the proposal. “ Give 
up all his practice, and his holiday, and 
everything, in order to doctor me ! ” she 
exclaimed, with a wondering smile. 
“ Really, Harry, I am not worth the 
trouble.” 

“ You are worth any trouble in the 
world, my love,” said her husband 
fondly. Then, after a moment’s pause, 
I think Endicott has a theory that he 
wants to work out — I believe it will 
please him more to stay here and at- 
tend you than go away for a holiday.” 

“ That is a comfortable way of look- 
ing at it, at any rate,” said his wife, with 
a suspicion of irony in her smile. 
“ Well, we will make him as comfortable 
as we can ; he will stay here, of course, 
and the little girl, too.” 

But Endicott refused to stay with the 
Crawfords. In the course of a walk 
taken that Sunday afternoon, he discov- 
ered a furnished house “ to let ” for 
August and September, and it occurred 
to him that it would be a more desirable 
thing to take this house than to stay at 
the Hall with the Crawfords. He dis- 
liked visiting, he wanted to be independ- 
ent ; and besides, this furnished house 
— usually known as the Manor House 
— possessed among other conveniences 
a long, high room, built on to one end 
of the house, and originally meant'as a 
gymnasium, which would do excellently 
for laboratory or surgery or whatever in 


DR. endicott’s success. 


47 


that way he might need. This room was 
the greatest attraction which the house 
possessed for Stephen Endicott, although 
in several other respects he acknowl- 
edged that it was charming. There 
was a delightful garden, and some airy, 
well-lighted rooms for little Alice and 
her governess or nurse. The house was 
only half a mile from the Hall, and stood 
quite away from the village of Fenby, 
which was two miles from the bigger 
market town of Bourneby. The village 
lay in a hollow, and the Manor House 
was on an eminence behind it. The 
Manor House garden and the Crawfords’ 
park were divided by a narrow lane 
which led from the village in the hollow 
to the church and churchyard on the 
hill. It seemed sometimes to strangers 
as if the church had been built chiefly 
for the use of the Hall and the Manor 
House, and that the spiritual welfare of 
the villagers had been the last consid- 
eration. The owner of the Manor House 
had gone abroad for thepurposes of sport, 
and was not likely to return home for 
some months ; he had almost given up 
the idea of letting his house, but would 
(his agent assured Dr. Endicott) be 
delighted to obtain a tenant. There- 
fore, when the Crawfords expressed 
their desire that he would remain with 
them, the doctor took them by surprise 
by declaring calmly that he would by no 
means inflict himself upon their hospi- 


48 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


tality, and that he had already made an 
offer for the Manor House. 

Harry was disposed to be angry, but . 
his wife, with keener comprehension of 
Stephen Endicott’s disposition, soothed 
him into tranquillity. “ Dr. Endicott 
will want to read and study,” she said. 

“ And it will be a greater change for 
him to come up now and then than to 
stay here altogether. Besides we are 
very happy in each other’s society, are 
we not, Harry, dear ? ” 

She held out her blue-veined, delicate 
hand to him, and he kissed it devotedly. 

“You are right, as you always are,” 
he said. “Yes, no doubt Endicott 
would be a bit of a bore, if he stayed in 
the house. And the child would be a 
nuisance, I dare say.” 

Lilian did not agree with him, but 
she did not care to say so. She herself 
would not have disliked having the doc- 
tor in the house ; she was interested in 
him and enjoyed his conversation ; but 
she saw quite well that her husband 
and he would not prove congenial com- 
panions, and she felt herself unequal to 
the task of reconciling their differences 
and making talk for the two. 

Dr. Endicott took very little heed of 
the effect which his decision produced. 
He went back to London on the Tues- 
day, taking his child with him ; but at 
the end of the week he was back again 
to take possession of the Manor House. 


DR. ENDICOTT's success. 


49 


Nurse and governess came with him, for 
Alice’s benefit and in a very short time 
he seemed as much settled there as if 
he had owned the place all his life. 

Whether the elders were satisfied or 
not, the children were in the seventh 
heaven of delight. Harold was a bright, 
intelligent little lad, with more of his 
mother’s sweetness and refinement than 
his father’s brusquerie. He was en- 
chanted with his new companion, and 
was quite disposed to revere her and 
not in the least to look down on her for 
being a girl, as is often the custom with 
boys of his age. “Ay, he’s been well 
brought up,” Dr. Endicott said once, in 
a tone of approval, when the fact was 
brought to his notice ; and he gave 
credit to Mrs. Crawford, for he was quite 
certain in his own heart, in spite of old 
acquaintance’ sake, that Harry Crawford 
had not taught his son anything that was 
good. 

Alice was disposed to fall down and 
worship at the feet of Mrs. Crawford 
and Harold, too. She had led a secluded 
little life, and had scarcely ever spoken 
to a boy or to a motherly woman before ; 
so it was scarcely to be wondered at that 
she should think Mrs. Crawford and her 
boy absolutely admirable and charming. 
She lived quite as much at the Hall as 
at the Manor House, and when she was 
not at the Crawfords’ Harold was with 
her. The parents looked on amused, 


50 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


but Lilian one day hazarded a conjec- 
ture as to Alice’s future which did not 
meet with her husband’s approval. 

“ Marry Harold ! What an absurd 
idea ! Quite impossible ! ” 

“ Why, dear ” ? asked his wife 
placidly. 

“ Don’t you see what a difference in 
station there is ? Think of Endicott’s 
father and the chemist’s shop.” 

Would that matter so very much ? ” 
said Mrs. Crawford, in a rather wistful 
tone. “ I have heard that Dr. Endicott 
is on his way to be a wealthy man. He 
is very well off now, I believe.” 

“ Money is not everything,” said 
Harry Crawford. “I like old Stephen 
immensely — always did, when he was as 
poor as Job, too ; but I don’t want my 
boy to marry his girl, any more than I 
should have wanted my sister, if I 
had had one, to marry him. There’s a 
difference.” 

“ But you like Dr. Endicott so much ! ” 
said Lilian, to whose gentle spirit these 
words of worldly widom were not very 
acceptable. 

“ Of course I do — like him more than 
any man I know. And I trust him, too, 
Lily. I’ve made him executor of my 
will and guardian to Harold,” said 
Crawford, with a laugh, “ in case any- 
thing happens to me ; and I don’t see 
how I can show greater liking or greater 
trust than by doing that. But, by Jove, 


DR. ENDICOTT*S SUCCESS. • 5 1 


I think I had better put in a new clause, 
that he’s not to let my son marry his 
daughter ! ” 

“ He would refuse to act, I should 
think, if you insulted him in that way. 
Not that anyone will be wanted to act, 
I hope. You are well and strong, 
Harry ; not like me. You will see 
Harold grown up and settled in 
life ” 

“ And so will you,” said Harry 
stoutly. “I’m sure Endicott is doing 
you good already. You look ever so 
much better than when he came.” 

“ Do I ? Well, perhaps so ; I have 
thought so myself,” said Mrs. Crawford 
hesitatingly. 

“ You feel better, do you not ? ” asked 
her husband. “You are a little stronger, 
are you not, darling ? ” 

She laid her hand in his, and looked 
at him with a wonderful brightness in 
her soft eyes. “ I am half afraid to say 
it,” she breathed, “ but I — I really think 
I am.” 

And the thought grew to a conviction. 
She was better, she was stronger, she 
was gaining appetite and flesh, she slept 
well at night, and the weakness, from 
which she had suffered more than from 
actual pain, was certainly diminishing. 
Harry Crawford grew jubilant, and his 
wife ceased to check him in the expres- 
sion of his joy. Yes, she was most 
assuredly better, and perhaps — perhaps 


52 DR. ENDICOTT'S EXPERIMENT. 


— she was going some day to be quite 
well. 

She dared not ask Dr. Endicott the 
question. She saw the care and pains 
that he bestowed upon her case ; in 
every word he uttered or remedy he ad- 
vised she felt his ability ; but she knew 
that he was anxious, and she would not 
trouble him with her own anxiety. 
Only, of late, she also saw and felt that 
his tones were more assured, that the 
shadow on his brow was lifting ; and he 
smiled upon her so pleasantly, when 
some little plan for the following sum- 
mer was mooted, that she could not but 
believe that he was satisfied with the 
progress which she made. 

Lilian was glad. She had been re- 
signed to die, for she was a woman of 
profound faith, and knew that nothing 
could happen to her without the will and 
consent of God ; but she was glad to 
think that it was not God’s will that she 
should die. She wanted to stay with 
her husband, to see her son grow up ; 
to avert, if possible, that ruin of their 
fortunes which sometimes seemed so 
near. Life, still fair and full of interest 
to her, she did not wish to leave it 
while she was young and had work 
to do. She longed with all her heart 
to hear the doctor say the words which 
would show that his remedies had 
proved effectual, although her case had 
been pronounced hopeless by every 


DR. endicott's success. 


S3 


other medical man who had attended 
her. 

But Stephen Endicott was cautious. 
Cure, if cure were possible, would be 
the work of months, and he did not 
want to utter a premature word. As 
the autumn weeks passed on, however, 
he began to feel almost a certainty of 
success. And success in this case would 
to him mean triumph. It would mean 
that a certain theory of his was proved 
accurate, and that a cure had been 
found for a terrible disease. Lilian 
Crawford’s case was a typical one. If 
she could be saved, there was safety also 
in the future for hundreds of other 
women. Stephen Endicott had always 
longed to make a discovery of this kind ; 
a discovery that would be of real benefit 
to the world, not only to himself. Suc- 
cess just now would probably mean 
fame and wealth and popularity ; but 
these things scarcely affected him. The 
lessening of pain, sorrow, and disease 
seemed to him the chief thing in the 
world, and for this end he said to him- 
self that he was prepared to sacrifice his 
life — his very soul. 

But until he was certain he would not 
speak. The holiday weeks passed over, 
and he was obliged to go back to town 
— for part of the week at any rate ; but 
he kept on the Manor House, and left 
his little girl and her governess behind. 
This gave him an excuse for running up 


54 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


to Bourneby very often, and for seeing 
Mrs. Crawford two or three times a 
week. He saw that she seemed to grow 
better every time he saw her. But it 
was not until after Christmas, not until 
January and February had passed, and 
the spring flowers were showing their 
heads above the moist brown soil, that 
he uttered a reassuring word. 

“ I think I am justified'in telling you,” 
he said to Harry Crawford, in his most 
deliberate tones, “ that the progress of 
the disease has been checked — indeed, I 
believe that the disease is not only ar- 
rested but is being cured.” 

“You think she will recover alto- 
gether ? ” 

“ I think so. In fact I am almost cer- 
tain of it.” 

“ Oh, God bless you, doctor ! ” said 
Harry. He wrung Stephen’s hand, then 
turned away and sobbed openly, as only 
a man of his temperament could have 
done. Stephen looked at him with a 
sense of uncomprehending envy. He 
could not understand a man whose 
emotions lay upon the surface in this 
way. 

However, although he could not un- 
derstand, he was very kind to Harry. 
He spoke some cheering words, and 
seemed pleased with his friend’s grati- 
tude. The thought of his own success 
was dearer to him than the actual fact 
of Lilian Crawford’s recovery ; but he 


DR. ENDICOTT’s success. 


55 


was glad also to know that she would 
one day be well and strong again. And 
when she herself met him, later in the 
day, and held out her hands to him 
with radiant, smiling joy, he was almost 
touched by her gladness. 

“ We can never thank you enough for 
your kindness,” she said. 

He wanted to stammer out that it had 
not been “ kindness,” but simply devo- 
tion to a scientific theory, but he could 
not get out the words. He was taken 
aback by the light in her lovely eyes, 
the smile upon her lips. 

“ I did feel it hard to have to go away 
so early,” she said simply. “ And I am 
so thankful that I need not say good- 
by to my husband and my boy just yet. 
And, under God, I owe my life to you. 
Dr. Endicott. But for your care and 
your wonderful skill, I should not be 
looking forward now to years of life 
and health, such as you say may be 
mine ” 

“ If you are careful, Mrs. Crawford. 
Of course you must keep up your 
strength and not excite yourself in any 
way. You must be in the fresh air as 
much as possible, — get your husband to 
take you for drives, — go abroad next 
winter, and so on. And if you take 
care I think you may count, as you say, 
upon years of life and health to come.” 

He was obliged to speak with curious 
dryness and precision, because he wanted 


56 DR. ENDICOTT’s EXPERIMENT. 


to hide the fact that he was moved to 
unusual emotion by her sweet thankful- 
ness. Lilian Crawford, who understood 
him better than her husband did, was 
not deceived, however, by his manner. 
She knew instinctively that he was glad 
of her recovery, and that her friendship 
meant something to him. Again she 
held out her hand. 

“ I cannot tell you all I feel,” she said. 
“ But you must let me express my grati- 
tude in deeds, not words. Some day, 
perhaps, I may be of use to your little 
Alice, as she grows up. And, if so, you 
will let me be her friend ; just as you 
would be a friend to Harold, I know, if 
he were in any need or difficulty.” 

“ I would, indeed,” he said earnestly. 
And she felt that it was something to 
have extracted these words from the 
silent and reticent man. 

Stephen Endicott was undoubtedly 
more pleased, more triumphant than he 
had ever been in his life. He was even 
impelled to speak of his success to a 
man whom he trusted a good deal, al- 
though he did not like him much — his 
laboratory assistant, Martin Dale. 

“You’ll publish an account of the 
case, I suppose, sir?” said Dale re- 
spectfully. 

Dale was “not a gentleman,” as 
people said. He had been an errand 
boy once. Then Dr. Endicott had 
found him out and made a pupil of 


DR. endicott's success. 


57 


him, finally a sort of assistant in his 
laboratory. Dale had a wonderful 
“ knack ” at dissection ; he was a most 
useful young man to the doctor, but he 
did not aspire to the medical profession, 
nor did Stephen dream of making him a 
doctor. He considered that Dale was at 
present the right man in the right place. 

He was not a prepossessing person. 
He had a pale face, deeply pitted with 
smallpox scars ; his small dark eyes 
were deeply set under heavy brows ; 
his face wore an astute, almost cunning 
expression. He was long and lanky 
in frame, and stooped from the shoul- 
ders, but was possessed of much muscu- 
lar strength, and his hands were wonder- 
fully skillful. Endicott did not like 
Martin Dale very much, and suspected 
him of an undue fondness for certain 
Eastern drugs which are not to be taken 
with impunity ; but he found the young 
man exceedingly useful. 

“Yes, I shall publish an account of it, 
of course ; suppressing names, if neces- 
sary. There is no doubt about the 
cure.” 

“ Perhaps the gentleman will consent 
to the publication of names, if the mat- 
ter be properly represented to him,” said 
Dale. 

“ Perhaps so. We shall see. It ought 
to make a sensation.” And Endicott 
smiled pleasurably. He was warm at 
heart with the prospect of success. 


58 DR. endicott's experiment. 


At that moment a knock came to the 
door. Dale opened it, and immediately 
afterward handed an orange-colored en- 
velope to his master. He noticed that 
Dr. Endicott frowned and turned a 
little pale as he opened it. “ Who 
wants me now ? ” he said in a vexed 
tone. But he thought of little Alice at 
the Manor House as he spoke. 

He read — read twice — then flung 
do^vn the paper with an odd, gasping 
sound, almost like a groan. 

“ I hope there’s nothing wrong, sir,” 
Dale ventured to say. 

“ Wrong, Dale ? Everything’s wrong. 
Read for yourself.” 

Martin Dale took up the telegram 
and read : 

“ Crawford to Stephen Endicott : 

“ Carriage accident ; my wife killed 
on the spot. Come, if you can.” 

“ It is Mrs. Crawford,” said Stephen, 
in answer to a questioning look from 
Dale. “ The case I told you about ; 
the case I built upon to establish my 
theory. Poor Crawford ! I’m sorry — 
sorry for him ; I’m sorry for her. But 
my case. Dale, my case ! I cured her, 
but who will believe it when she is — 
dead ? ” 

He was thoroughly unstrung; other- 
wise, such self-revelation would have 
been impossible to him. He cared 


FAILURE. 


59 


more for his theory than for Lilian 
Crawford, after all. He sat down and 
shaded his eyes with his hand. Not 
until he was roused from meditation by 
Dale’s jarring voice did he look up 
again. 

‘‘You’ll make a post-mortem^ I sup- 
pose, sir ? You can establish your the- 
ory in that way,” said Martin Dale. 


CHAPTER V. 

FAILURE. 

CTEPHEN ENDICOTT walked slow- 
^ ly up the drive that led to Bourneby 
Hall. He had just arrived from the 
station, and he had sent Martin Dale 
to the Manor House with his bag. Why 
he had brought Martin with him, he did 
not say, even to Martin himself — but 
the young man knew very well that it 
was because the doctor thought he might 
need a helper in the work he wanted 
to do. 

His nature was a tenacious one. He 
had set his heart upon the discovery of 
a cure for the disease from which Lilian 
Crawford had been suffering, and he 
believed himself the possessor of a 
remedy. It was easy to tell himself 
that he might find another patient upon 
whom he could try the system which he 


5o DR. endicott’s experiment. 


had pursued so successfully in Mrs. 
Crawford’s case ; but he was unreason- 
ably impatient of the time which would 
thus be lost. Lilian’s had been, as was 
said before, a typical case ; ^^nd he had 
watched it with a minute care which he 
was not often able to bestow. Unless 
he could in some way verify the effects 
of his treatment, all this care would, 
from a technical point of view, be lost. 
But he was determined that it should 
not be lost, if only he could manage to 
make Harry Crawford see matters from 
the right point of view. And by the 
right point of view. Dr. Endicott meant, 
of course, his own. 

He rang at the door of Bourneby 
Hall, noting the deathly stillness that 
seemed to have fallen over the house, 
the inexpressible sense of desolation 
that had assailed it. Generally the 
front door stood hospitably open, and 
there were sounds of children’s voices 
to be heard, or a passing footstep, or 
joyous laughter and music. But to-day 
everything was silent ; and the old man- 
servant who opened the door had his 
eyes red and swollen, and the darkened 
spaces of the house seemed to Endicott 
terribly oppressive. He was half 
ashamed of the errand on which he 
knew that, secretly, he had come. Con- 
dolence ? The husband’s grief ? The 
destiny of the motherless boy ? These 
had been but slight considerations with 


FAILURE. 


6i 


him. They had not brought Stephen 
Endicott to Bourneby Hall that night. 

He was shown into the library, and 
here, in a few moments, Harry Crawford 
joined him. Stephen was startled out 
of his self-absorption by the sight of 
his friend. Grief and horror had made 
a wreck of him already. He could not 
speak to Endicott without bursting into 
tears, and some time elapsed before any 
connected account of the catastrophe 
could be obtained. 

“ You advised her to go for drives, 
you know,” the squire said at last, al- 
most resentfully, as if Stephen’s advice 
had been in fault. “ And I took her 
myself ; thought I could drive her better 
than anyone, you know. And — yester- 
day afternoon — we’d had a capital drive, 
and I was bringing the grays back 
through Rutter Lane — you know the 
place, don’t you ? — when we met one of 

those steam-plows, and the animals 

reared — got unmanageable all in a 
minute, they did — plunged, knocked the 
carriage almost to bits — threw her 
straight out into the road. All the rest 
of us went out, too ” 

“ Were the children there ? ” asked 
Endicott, almost in a tone of horror. 

“ Yes, but they weren’t hurt. I wasn’t 
hurt either,” Said Crawford, with a 
groan. “ If only I had been knocked on 
the head and put out of the way ! She 
never moved or spoke again, Endicott. 


62 DR. ENDICOTT’s EXPERIMENT. 


She wasn’t even able to say good-by. 
And just when we were in the first flush 
of hope — when she seemed so much 
better ” 

“ She was better. She was virtually 
cured,” said the doctor. 

“ Oh, it seems very hard ; it is very 
hard ! ” cried Harry Crawford, throwing 
up his hands with a passionate gesture. 
“ It was fated, I suppose, that I should 
kill her, after all. I thought I’d done it 
when she was so ill ; then I breathed 
again when she got better, but now — 

• now — now ” 

He broke down again, and wept un- 
restrainedly, with strong, vehement sobs 
and broken ejaculations of honest, un- 
regulated grief. Stephen murmured a 
word or two of well-meant consolation 
from time to time, but it was doubtful 
whether Crawford heard. 

“ You’d like to see her, wouldn’t 
you ? ” he said, when the passion had 
spent itself at length, and he could speakr 
distinctly. 

“ Yes,” Stephen said, “ I should like 
to see her.” 

“ There will have to be an inquest,” 
Crawford said mournfully. “ It’s fixed 
for to-morrow. Merely a formal thing, 
you know, but very — very painful.” 

“ Ah, yes, very,” said Dr. Endicott 
mechanically. For the moment, it 
seemed as though his thoughts were far 
away from the matter in hand, and 


FAILURE. 


63 


Crawford glanced at him in surprise and 
indignation. But the doctor looked so 
sad, so grave, so compassionate, that 
Harry Crawford’s anger evaporated as 
quickly as it had arisen. 

“Come this way,’’ he said, and 
Stephen followed him to the room where 
all that was mortal of Lilian Crawford lay. 

Everything had been done which 
could possibly disguise the ghastliness 
of death. The room was draped in 
white, and the marble-like figure was 
half covered with lovely white flowers. 
Endicott looked silently and gravely for 
a few minutes, then bent and looked at 
a purple mark on the temple. “ It was 
this, I suppose ? ’’ he said, in a hushed 
voice. 

“Yes. There was no other injury.’’ 

Endicott breathed more freely. In 
spite of the solemnity of the moment, 
in spite of the desecration, as it might be 
called, to which he purposed putting 
that fair, deserted temple of a beauti- 
ful soul, he was mutely glad that Lilian 
Crawford’s body had not been crushed, 
and that there would be no physical 
obstacle to the examination he wished 
to make. He was not consciously 
ghoul-like, but his whole mind was 
fastened on one idea, and he had per- 
suaded himself that this one idea was 
for the benefit of the whole human race. 
He stayed but a few minutes in the 
death-chamber, for he saw that Harry 


64 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


was on the point of breaking down, and 
he thought it better to remove him 
before he again gave way. 

“ J ust when she was growing stronger,” 
the squire said mournfully, as they re- 
entered the library. “Just when she 
was cured of that trouble of hers — she 
was cured, I suppose, Stephen ?” 

It was the very opportunity that 
Stephen desired. 

“ I believe that she was cured,” he 
said deliberately. “ In a case like hers, 
a few months’ more treatment would 
have shown us absolutely whether I had 
been successful or not.” 

“ Ah ! ” said Harry, turning his 
dimmed eyes upon his friend, with only 
a half comprehension of his meaning. 
“ But I thought you told me she was all 
right.” 

“ I told you I believed so. I do 
believe so. In a few months I could 
have spoken with even a more absolute 
confidence — that is all.” 

“ And now you can’t know for certain. 
After all your care and attention that is 
a little hard, aint it ? ” said Harry, turn- 
ing a feeble ray of intelligence upon 
the situation. “ But it can’t be helped 
now. It’s — it’s the will of Providence, I 
suppose.” 

“ It is not,” said Stephen more sternly 
than he knew. “I can still ascertain 
perfectly well whether she was cured 
or not.” 


FAILURE. 


65 


Crawford stared at him fixedly, but 
had evidently no idea as to what he 
meant. And with gathering earnestness 
Dr. Endicott went on. 

“ I wish to call your attention to one 
very important point. Mrs. Crawford 
suffered from an internal disease — a 
growth probably of a cancerous nature, 
which has hitherto been deemed incur- 
able. I speak to you as one outside the 
medical profession, and will therefore 
spare you any technical terms. It was 
impossible to cut the growth away, and 
no local treatment has been practicable. 
My own theory was that the growth 
could be done away with by the use of 
certain drugs ; and I have pursued this 
treatment with apparent success. The 
thing to be established is — whether the 
diseased growth has simply been dis- 
persed, in which case I think traces of 
it would be discovered in other parts of 
the system, or whether it is gone alto- 
gether. You understand.” 

“ Yes, I understand.” 

“ If it is gone, my theory is proved. 
That is all.” 

He looked so entirely satisfied and 
interested in the anticipated success of 
his theory, that Harry Crawford, smart- 
ing from the sense of a terrible bereave- 
ment, for the moment lost his temper. 

“ your theory,” he said bitterly. 

Endicott was surprised. He paused, 
and then remonstrated. 


66 dr.^endicott’s experiment. 


“ My dear Harry, you mistake my 
reasons for forcing these facts upon you. 
I know how vain and futile they may 
appear to you just now. But there are 
other people in the world to whom they 
are as important now as they were to 
you three months ago. There are other 
women suffering and dying from the 
same complaint — other husbands and 
children who are lamenting the loss of 
the wife and mother who was most dear. 
It is on their account I speak.” 

Some glimmering of the doctor’s 
meaning perhaps flashed across Harry 
Crawford’s brain. He sat down and 
watched Endicott’s face from under 
lowering brows ; and he breathed 
heavily as he listened. 

“ I had an opportunity of observing 
the progress of the disease and of its 
cure in your wife’s- case, such as I shall 
probably never have again. I made 
valuable notes on every stage, and ob- 
servations which I wrote out in the most 
minute detail. Little more remained to 
be done before I could give that result 
to the world. Death has unfortunately 
stepped in and robbed me of the conclu- 
sion to my researches. Your loss is my 
loss also — and the loss of the world.” 

“ Good Heaven ! ” said Crawford, 
clutching the arm of his chair, and look- 
ing fiercely at his friend, “ and I thought 
you watched her from a feeling of re- 
gard — I thought you cared to cure her — 


FAILURE. 


67 


and you were only bent all the time on 
medical research. You meant to give 
her case to the world, did you ? Hers ! 
You forgot that you had me to reckon 
with, Dr. Endicott.” 

“ It made me no less a friend to you 
and to her that I was bent on enriching 
the world with my discoveries,” said 
Stephen quietly. 

“ Well, that may be. But Death has 
stepped in, as you say, to rob you, un- 
fortunately, of your conclusion. Be 
thankful to Death for once ! I would have 
taken you by the throat and strangled you 
sooner than that you should make a 
‘ case ’ of her illness — a case to be quoted 
in the Lancet and the British Medical 

and all your other d medicine 

papers. I would kill you first ! ” 

“ My dear Harry, listen to me,” said 
Stephen, with great gentleness. “ I as- 
sure you that Mrs. Crawford’s name 
would never have been mentioned. I 
should not have brought her personally 
into any discussion or controversy. And 
she would have been the last person to 
object to my giving to other people the 
benefit of the knowledge and experience 
I had gained in her case.” 

“Perhaps so,” said Crawford, turning 
away with a sullen air. “ And if she 
,had consented, and liked the notion, 
that might have been a different thing. 
But it is too late to consider the matter 
now. Fortunately, perhaps, for you.” 


68 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


“ Surely, you acknowledge the good 
that might be done if I could see my 
way to combating this terrible form of 
disease ? ” said Endicott. “ Think of 
the women who might be saved ; of the 
blessings that their husbands would give 
to the system that saved them ; the good 

that it would do ” 

“ Why should I think of all that ? ” 
said Crawford roughly. “ I have lost 
all I care for in the world, in spite of 
your science. It is not my business to 
save other men from the sorrow I bear.” 

Stephen knitted his brow. This 
frame of mind was quite incomprehen- 
sible to him. He had his faults, but he 
had not the particular kind of selfish- 
ness which was natural to Harry Craw- 
ford ; for any sorrow that had ever come 
to him had, so far, served only as a spur 
to exertion for the good of his fellow- 
men. And to make it into an excuse 
for churlish refusal to help others was 
to him an almost unpardonable sin. 

“ It is my business,” he said shortly, 
to save people from bodily pain and 
illness, to the best of my ability. You 
ought to know that.” 

I do know it. I am grateful for all 
you did for my poor Lilian. But I 
won’t have her made into a case to be 
discussed and bandied about in every 
newspaper. Thank God ! it’s too late for 
that.” 

‘‘ Excuse me,”, said Stephen. You 


FAILURE. 


69 


keep saying that it is ‘ too late ’ for this, 
that, and the other. You must allow 
me to remind you that it is not too late 
for my observations to be proved and 
concluded.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

With your permission,” said Dr. 
Endicott formally — but there was a note 
of menace in his voice, “ with your per- 
mission, which in the interests of medi- 
cal science I must request, an autopsy 
will put me in possession of all the facts 
that I wish to know.” 

“ An aut — speak English, man : what 
do you mean ? ” 

“ I mean that I wish to make an ex- 
amination of Mrs. Crawford’s state at 
the time of her death. It shall be con- 
ducted quite privately, Harry ; no one 
will know of it, and there need be 
nothing at all to hurt your feelings ; 
but some slight examination would 
show ” 

The squire started up with a roar 
like that of a wounded bull, and faced 
the doctor with flushed face, and angrily 
flashing eyes. 

“ You brute ! Do you mean that 
you would cut up my -wife’s body for 
the sake of your cursed investigation ? ” 

Stephen Endicott did not flinch. 
“ Cutting up is a figure of speech which 
we need not discuss,” he said calmly. 
“ I propose to make an examina- 
tion ” 


70 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


“ You propose to use a knife in your 
examination ? That is what I mean by 
cutting up,” said Crawford. “ And I 
defy you to deny it if you can. Ex- 
amination ! You will not lay a finger 
on my wife’s dead body, Endicott, so 
long as I am alive to protect it. Is 
nothing sacred to you in the whole wide 
world ? ” 

For the first time Stephen hesitated and 
looked down, then cleared his throat, 
and proceeded somewhat diffidently : 

“ Of course, if you have so strong a 
dislike to it, Crawford, I can say no 
more. I assure you, however, it is not 
at all an uncommon proceeding. In 
difficult cases, it is sometimes almost a 
necessity before a certificate as to the 
cause of death can be given.” 

“ It is not a necessity in this case,” 
said Crawford grimly. “There is not 
the slightest doubt about the cause of 
Lilian’s death.” 

“Consider the interests of other 
sufferers — consider how I might allev- 
iate their agonies, if I knew.” 

“ I don’t believe you could do more 
than you do already. Besides, your 
patients are nothing to me, in compari- 
son to the love I feel for my dead wife. 
Do you think I am going to let her 
beautiful body be hacked about by a 
dissecting knife for the gratification of 
your curiosity ? It is sacrilege to think 
of it.” 


FAILURE. 


71 


Dr. Endicott’s eye flashed He was 
goaded into uttering the bitterest word 
that he had ever said to Harry Crawford. 

“You did not respect her beautiful 
body very much when you gave her the 
blow that developed this disease,” he 
said. And almost before the words 
were out of his mouth, the squire’s 
brawny hands were at his throat. 

There was a moment’s struggle, sharp 
but short. Then Endicott, having got 
the mastery of his opponent, laid him 
back in the big armchair and looked at 
the panting breast, the swollen veins, 
and inflamed countenance of the coun- 
try squire with infinite contempt. 

“ Don’t try that sort of thing too 
often,” he said. “ You can’t stand it, 
and it is very bad for you. You are 
behaving like a fool. To my thinking 
there is nothing derogatory to man or 
woman in giving his or her body after 
death for purposes of science ; and to 
refuse it in this case is to bring upon 
yourself the scorn of all sensible men.” 

“ Get — out of — my — house ! ” gasped 
Crawford. 

“ Certainly. I am going at once, and 
will never cross its threshold again. 
Unless, indeed, you should retract what 
you have said ” 

“ You villain ! ” hissed forth the in- 
furiated man. “ Get out of my sight ! 
To think that she — talked with you— 
liked you — treated you and your child 


72 DR. ENDICOTT’s EXPERIMENT. 


with kindness, and that you should repay 
us in this way ! ” 

For answer, Endicott simply shrugged 
his shoulders. Crawford’s attitude was 
almost incomprehensible to him. He 
had immersed himself so deeply in sci- 
entific modes of thought that an objec- 
tion founded, as he would have said, 
entirely upon “sentiment,” did not seem 
to him to be worth consideration. He 
went out of the house, feeling a good 
deal wounded, and even more vexed 
than wounded at Crawford’s words, and 
as he walked back to the Manor House 
he reflected within himself that it would 
be better to give up his dream of a 
country life for Alice, and transplant 
her with himself to London again ; for 
Fenby would be unbearable if Bourneby 
Hall were closed against them both. 

Martin Dale met him at the garden 
gate, and walked, two paces behind, to 
the house door with him. Endicott had 
not meant to show his vexation, but in 
the first shock of disappointment it all 
came out. Perhaps a leading question, 
such as Martin Dale was in the habit of 
putting, was the immediate cause of this 
confidence. And Dale was almost too 
sympathetic. 

“ Such a loss to the world at large ! ” 
he moaned. “ And the case has been 
talked about — written about. People 
will say she was killed by the remedies 
you’ve used ; that they got into her 


FAILURE. 


73 


system and poisoned her. It will be a 
great blow to your reputation, sir : dear, 
dear ; how unfortunate it is ! ” 

“I shall publish my notes on the 
case,” said Endicott, who did not quite 
like this way of looking at the matter, 
“ and they ought to be conclusive. You 
can corroborate them, you know.” 

“ Yes, sir. But how much more 
satisfactory it would be to have a post- 
mortem. You need not have made that 
public at all, you see, but it would have 
enabled you to establish your conclu- 
sion. Perhaps it is not — too late — yet, 
sir ?” 

“ Nothing will alter Mr. Crawford’s 
decision, I’m afraid. He will not give 
his consent.” 

“ Couldn’t it be managed without his 
consent, sir ? ” 

Certainly not,” said Dr. Endicott 
angrily. “What are you thinking of. 
Dale ? I could not do such a thing by 
underhand means, of course.” 

“ Couldn’t you, sir ? ” said Martin 
Dale meekly. “ Oh, I beg your pardon. 
Only it does seem a pity to lose the 
chance, does it not? You and I to- 
gether, sir — I am sure we could manage 
it without letting anyone else into the 
secret.” 


74 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


CHAPTER VI. 

MARTIN dale’s SUGGESTION. 

‘Y^HAT do you mean, Dale?” said 
^ ^ Endicott unwillingly. 

He knew that he ought not to have 
asked. He knew that he had better tell 
Martin Dale to hold his tongue, and 
make up his mind valiantly to bear what 
could not be helped. But he asked the 
question, heard Martin Dale’s cautiously 
suggested answer, and replied with a 
hasty negative and a rebuke. But the 
suggestion had nevertheless been made, 
and lingered in Dr. Endicott’s memory, 
as Dale perhaps had known that it 
would do. At any rate, he noticed that 
the doctor did not send him back to 
London immediately, but kept him 
until the following morning , as if un- 
decided as to his own course of conduct. 
And on the following day, doctor and 
assistant returned to town together, but 
in a curious and almost unbroken 
silence. 

Dr. Endicott returned to Fenby in 
time for Mrs. Crawford’s funeral, but he 
did not go up to the Hall before or after- 
ward — a fact which was a good deal 
commented on in the neighborhood. 

Crawford can’t blame him for his 
wife’s death, surely,” said one man to 
another. “ Shouldn’t think so ; why. 


MARTIN DALE'S SUGGESTION. 75 


she was said to be getting so much 
better — probably he blew Crawford up 
for taking her out, and Crawford turned 
rusty — just his way.” “ They used to 
be friends — dare say the little coolness 
will wear itself out before long,” was the 
answer ; and the subject dropped and 
was forgotten until subsequent events 
recalled it to the speakers’ minds. 

The funeral took place on a showery 
day in March : a day that was peculiarly 
dreary and depressing. There was a 
large concourse at the grave, and it was 
evident that Mrs. Crawford was very 
sincerely mourned by her friends and 
acquaintances. Dr. Endicott stood 
nearly opposite Harry Crawford, and 
was observed to watch him narrowly — 
possibly for medical reasons, as the 
strong man’s strength seemed to have 
vanished utterly, and he staggered more 
than once on the very verge of the grave, 
as if he would have fallen. Few were 
present who were not affected by the 
sight of his grief, the sound of his heart- 
rending sobs, as the coffin was lowered 
into the grave beneath the burden of 
white wreaths and floral crosses, but it 
made more impression on the mind of 
his little son Harold than on that of 
anyone else. The boy Harold never 
lost the memory of those terrible mo- 
ments, and, at a much later period in his 
life, it recurred to him with almost over- 
whelming force. 


76 DR. ENDICOTT'S experiment. 


Stephen Endicott returned gloomily 
and slowly to the Manor House, Martin 
Dale, who had also attended the funeral, 
following at a respectful distance. The 
doctor did not enter the house by the 
usual door. He went round to the 
back, where the gymnasium — now a 
laboratory and workroom — stretched 
its ugly length of wood and iron into 
the overgrown old garden. Here he 
opened the garden-door and entered, 
leaving it open for Martin, who slid in 
after him, as if half afraid of being seen. 

The doctor stood in the middle of the 
bare room, and looked round him with 
a half stupefied air. Some difference of 
arrangement in the furniture struck him 
at once. A big table had been drawn 
forward, for one thing, and looked pain- 
fully large and bare. There were cer- 
tain packages on the floor : some of 
them looked like tools, and were of 
curious shapes and sizes. Stephen En- 
dicott looked at them with a frown on 
his brow. Then he glanced up at 
Martin Dale with an odd expression of 
mingled anger and perplexity. 

“ You have taken me at my word, 
then,” he said. 

“ Yes, I have,” said Martin Dale. 

The doctor eyed the packages again. 

“ It will be an awkward business if 
we are discovered.” 

“ How can we be discovered, sir ? ” 
said Martin smoothly. It is a splen- 


MARTIN dale’s SUGGESTION. 77 


did night for the business, and the grave 
is in a very remote situation.” 

“You had better hold your tongue,” 
said Dr. Endicott sharply. “ The fewer 
spoken words the better.” 

“ Deeds speak louder than words, 
don’t they, sir ? ” said Martin, with an 
apparent innocence which made the 
doctor shrink a little in spite of himself. 
“ And these little implements — I’d a 
deal of trouble to get them, sir, and you 
promised to pay the expenses, which 
were close on ten pounds altogether, and 

a trifle for remuneration ” 

“ We did not fix the sum, eh ?” said 
the doctor, without looking at him. 
“ Well, how much ? ” 

Martin preferred to leave it to Dr. 
Endicott. 

“ Twenty pounds ? ” 

“ Considering the risk, sir, I think 

twenty pounds is — hardly ” 

“ Double it, then. Forty.” 

“ And the expenses, sir. Fifty alto- 
gether.” 

Dr. Endicott hesitated. He was 
putting himself entirely in the power of 
this man. Was it worth while ? A 
sharp struggle raged within him for a 
minute or two. Peace, honor, truth on 
the one side ; success, gratified pride, 
perhaps the hope of bringing relief to 
the physical pain of some of his patients 
on the other. And the latter won the 
day. 


78 DR, ENDICOTT^S EXPERIMENT. 


“Very well,” he said shortly. “I 
will give it you afterward.” 

“ No, sir, you won’t ; you’ll give it me 
now,” said Martin Dale. 

It was the first touch of insolence he 
had allowed himself, and he quailed as 
soon as the words were out of his mouth, 
for Stephen Endicott turned upon him 
with a flash of the eye that nearly fright- 
ened the young man out of his wits. 

“ Be thankful if I give you anything 
instead of a sound drubbing for your 
impudence,” said the doctor. “ What 
do you mean by talking to me in that 
way, you insolent lout ? ” 

Martin cringed and pleaded. He had 
not meant it ; he had not meant any- 
thing ; he was only too happy to execute 
the doctor’s orders, and did not ask for 
any reward at all. So he said, but there 
was something in his eye that made 
Stephen Endicott uneasy ; something 
that he could not altogether understand. 

“ I have no objection,” he said at 
length, rather slowly, “to divide the 
sum and give you half now, and half 
when we come home to-night. Will 
that satisfy you ? ” 

Martin declared himself more than 
satisfied. He was even effusively grate- 
ful. Endicott turned away from an out- 
pouring which seemed to his ears offen- 
sive, and walked silently into the house, 
telling the young man to await his 
return. He would not have been sur- 


MARTIN dale’s SUGGESTION. 79 


prised to see the change that came over 
Martin Dale’s face when he had de- 
parted, if it had been possible for him 
to see it. He knew the world, he knew 
his man, too well to expect anything 
else. The assistant sneered at him 
behind his back, sneered with an expres- 
sion of inconceivable hate and con- 
tempt. 

“ I have you now. Dr. Endicott,” he 
said to himself ; “ I hold your reputa- 
tion in the very palm of my hand ; I 
have you now.” And his face was 
lighted up with a perfectly fiendish joy. 

Stephen Endicott went heavily along 
the passage of the house to his own 
room. He had guessed that money 
would be required that day, and he was 
prepared for the emergency. He un- 
locked a bureau and took thence a cer- 
tain number of notes and sovereigns, 
which he placed in a small canvas bag 
which he thrust into his pocket. Then 
he walked slowly from the room, for- 
getting, however, that he had left the 
keys hanging in the lock of the bureau. 
He forgot them — until the morrow, 
when he had an unpleasant reminder of 
his own carelessness. 

As he walked back to his laboratory, 
little Alice came out of her nursery and 
ran up to him, catching at the sleeve of 
his coat as he went by. 

“Father!” she said, somewhat tim- 
idly. “ Father ! Is it really true ?” 


8o DR. endicott’s experiment. 


“Is what true, my darling?” said 
Endicott, stopping short, and stroking 
back her clustering curls of gold. 

“ Is it true what nurse says, father ? 
Is Harold’s mother really gone away? 
Gone to heaven, so that I shall never 
see her any more ? ” 

“It is quite true, my little girl,” said 
Dr. Endicott. 

“Oh, father !” 

The child’s eyes were full of tears, 
which fell over her fair little face as she 
looked at him. He took her up in his 
arms and kissed her ; for the moment 
he did not want her to look him in the 
face. 

“Father, are you sorry, too?” she 
murmured. 

“Yes, my child, yes. God knows I 
am sorry,” he answered ; and there was 
more in the sentence than Alice could 
comprehend. 

“But you won’t leave off being 
friends with Harold and his father, will 
you ? ” said the child, who had evidently 
heard some gossip on the subject — prob- 
ably from the servants. 

“ Oh, that will be all right, my dear,” 
said the father evasively. He wished 
that he had sent her back to London 
with her nurse and governess, before 
this day of the funeral. But it was too 
late now. 

“ Will it?” said the child. “Will Har- 
old come and see us just the same ? ” 


MARTIN dale's SUGGESTION. 8l 


“ Harold is growing a big boy. He 
will soon be going to school, and not 
care to play with girls,” Stephen Endi- 
cott replied. “And you are my own 
little daughter. I shall want you a 
great deal more than I ever did before, 
now that you are growing so tall. You 
love me more than you love Harold, do 
you not ?” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Alice eagerly. “ I 
love you, father, as much — as much” — 
she paused for an instant in order to 
find a suitable comparison — “as much 
as Harold loves his mother — and that’s 
a great, great deal.” 

He kissed her again, but set her down 
rather hurriedly. Something in her 
words touched him — the thought, per- 
haps, of the boy’s love toward the dead 
woman whose last resting place he had 
made up his mind to violate that night. 

He strode back to the laboratory with 
his hand clasped over the bag of money 
in his pocket. He thought to himself 
that he would have renounced his proj- 
ect if he had not already spoken to 
Martin Dale. But there was a certain 
shrinking in his mind — a shrinking from 
the sneer that he could picture to him- 
self upon the young man’s face. He 
seemed to hear the jibe that would issue 
from Martin’s lips. “ I didn’t think 
you would be afraid, sir ! ” he could 
fancy that he heard Martin say. And 
he could not face that jeer. 


82 DR. ENDICOTT’s EXPERIMENT. 


He found Martin busy with some 
mysterious preparations for the night’s 
work — he could not ask him what they 
were. He simply walked up to him and 
thrust the bag into his assistant’s hands. 
The young man nodded and smiled, but 
made no other reply. He saw that Dr. 
Endicott was ashamed of what he was 
going to do ; and his shame placed him 
all the more completely in Martin Dale’s 
hands. He was not ashamed ; and he 
had, so far, an advantage over Dr. 
Endicott. But he was more afraid, and, 
so far. Dr. Endicott had the advantage 
over him. 

The two men took pains to behave as 
usual. They dined together at the usual 
hour, ate as usual, conversed a little as 
usual. Alice came downstairs for des- 
sert ; she did not dine with her father 
in the country. Tea was served in the 
drawing room, and at half-past ten Mr. 
Martin Dale retired demurely to his 
own room, and Dr. Endicott went round 
the house to perform the ceremony 
known as “ locking up.” At eleven all 
the lights were out save one in the 
library, where, as it was well known to 
the household, the master usually sat 
and read or wrote until the small hours 
of the morning. 

He did sit there till midnight. He 
took some papers out of his desk and 
went steadily and undeviatingly through 
1 is notes of Mrs. Crawford’s case. His 


MARTIN dale’s SUGGESTION. 83 


brow cleared as he perused them. They 
were so clear, so convincing ; they 
wanted so little to be absolutely per- 
fect, and that little he was about to 
supply. Surely there was nothing to be 
ashamed of here. 

At midnight he roused himself from 
the study of his notes. He went softly 
to his bedroom and took from his box 
a suit of clothes which he had brought 
with him from London — rough, ill-made 
tweed clothes, with a dark ulster over 
all, and a soft felt hat, which could be 
bent down into any shape above his face. 
He looked at himself in a mirror, 
frowned, and involuntarily shook his 
head. The pale, clear-cut features that 
loomed forth from the surrounding 
shadows were far too marked to escape 
recognition, should he be met that night 
even by a casual acquaintance. With 
an expression of mingled disgust and 
impatience he took out of the box a 
false beard, dark and bushy, which, 
when affixed, completely changed his 
appearance. It would not be very easy 
to recognize Stephen Endicott, the Lon- 
don doctor, in that guise. 

At the last moment he turned back 
and took his watch and chain from the 
table where it had been lying. “ It will 
be as well to know how the time goes,” 
he said to himself as he thrust it into an 
inner pocket, concealing the heavy seal 
that hung from the chain within his 


84 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


waistcoat. “ And now let me see 
whether Dale is ready. I wish I could 
have employed anyone else.” And it 
was with a dark foreboding of evil upon 
him that he slunk, noiselessly as any 
burglar, down to the locked door of the 
laboratory. 

The long, bare room was faintly 
lighted by a solitary candle, and Dale 
was busy at a table. He looked up, 
uttered a faint cry, and threw himself 
into an awkward attitude of defense. 
He had not recognized his master. 

Endicott laughed slightly. “ You 
fool ! ” he said. “ Don’t you know me ? 
Then I am safe indeed.” 

“ Oh! I beg pardon,” said Dale, letting 
his hands sink to his sides. ‘‘ I had no 
idea — if I’d thought of it, I would have 
done something of the sort,” he added, 
looking enviously at the false beard, the 
felt hat, and the shabby, all-concealing 
ulster. “I never thought of a disguise.” 

“ It does not matter to you,” said the 
doctor carelessly. “You are not re- 
sponsible : I am. You are merely act- 
ing under my orders. Come, there is 
no time to waste ; let us get to work.” 

Martin sullenly obeyed. There were 
various implements to be collected ; 
tools, a sack, a dark lantern, among 
others. These were divided between 
the two men, and then the candle was 
extinguished, the garden door opened, 
and the ill-assorted pair found them- 


MARTIN dale’s SUGGESTION. 85 


selves in the garden, with the cold night 
air throwing a dash of rain into their 
faces. 

“A good night for our project,” was 
the thought of both men, but neither 
spoke. It was extremely dark, and a 
wild wind was soughing among the 
branches of the trees, while a few rain- 
drops fell now and then from an angry 
sky. It was certainly not a night on 
which many persons were likely to be 
abroad. The inhabitants of Fenby kept 
early hours ; and the lane that led past 
the churchyard was not frequented after 
dark. Dr. Endicott led the way down 
the drive; then he turned aside to a little 
wicket gate which opened into this very 
lane, and there he stopped short for a 
moment to listen and to look. It was a 
good spot for such observation ; it com- 
manded in the daytime a good view of 
the village in the valley, and a glimpse 
of the Hall upon the hill. 

There was nothing to excite remark. 
Not a light could be seen, either in the 
village or from the windows of the Hall. 
The moan of the wind, the creaking of 
the branches, the rustle of the long grass 
and the bracken, were the only sounds 
that broke the stillness of the night. 
After listening intently for a minute or 
two. Dr. Endicott turned abruptly to 
the left, and led the way up the lane to 
the churchyard gate, Martin following 
close behind. 


86 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


The night was so dark that even the 
grayish white church tower glimmered 
but faintly through the blackness. The 
tombstones stood up like dimly outlined 
ghosts. Martin Dale, with a sudden 
superstitious thrill, Jwondered how the 
doctor could dare to go so boldly upon 
his unholy errand ; and wondered still 
more at the swiftness and sureness with 
which he made his way to the freshly 
made grave, still heaped with flowers 
laid there that afternoon by loving hands. 

It was plain that Dr. Endicott was 
not going to allow himself any sentiment 
on the subject. He did not pause a 
moment. He began by removing the 
wreaths one by one and laying them 
aside. They would be wanted later on. 
Then, with a word or two of direction 
to Martin, he began to dig up the earth, 
which was still loose and moist above 
Lilian Crawford’s coffin. In this task 
he was assisted by the younger man, and 
when they had worked for some time, 
they ventured to light the lantern and 
turn it upon their toil. Neither of them 
spoke. The work was hard, and also, 
of necessity, very slow. Cold though 
the night had seemed, the beads of per- 
spiration rolled down the faces of the 
diggers long before their task was 
achieved. But then they worked with a 
will, only pausing from time to time to 
be sure that no footsteps could be heard, 
.that no watcher was drawing nigh. 


AT Lilian’s grave. 


87 


At last the work was done — or almost 
done. The earth was all removed : the 
coffin was laid bare. And then, skillfully 
and gently, Stephen Endicott applied 
his tools to the lid ; the screws were 
easy enough to manage, and the lid was 
not difficult to raise. He had just 
caught a glimpse of the white form 
which he was about to raise from its 
resting place, when a strange, sudden 
sound fell upon his ears. There was a 
stifled cry from Martin Dale, and the 
sound of rushing feet. Endicott leaped 
out of the grave in which he had been 
standing, and found himself almost in 
the arms of a formidable adversary. 

“Who are you that come to rob my 
wife’s grave ? ” said a hoarse, furious 
voice. And for one moment Stephen 
Endicott felt a thrill of positive fear. 
For the voice was the voice of Harry 
Crawford, and he knew that this struggle 
would be for life or death. 


CHAPTER VII. 

AT LILIAN’S GRAVE. 

^NCE already had Dr. Endicott 
^ proved himself superior in strength 
of muscle and sinew to his old friend. 
But in this case Crawford had some 
.advantages, apart from physical fitness. 


88 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


He had come upon an enemy who was 
unprepared, and he was in the right, 
whereas Endicott was in the wrong ; 
besides, anger gave force to his arm and 
weight to his blows. At first the ad- 
vantages seemed to be all on his side. 
Stephen was a little unnerved, and de- 
fended himself without vigor ; and he 
was also confounded by the unexpected 
fact that Martin Dale, who had sug- 
gested and stimulated him to this expe- 
dition, had, on the first hint of danger, 
taken to his heels and run away. 

But in the long run Dr. Endicott’s 
strength and coolness returned ; and, as 
Crawford pressed him hard, he began to 
see that he must do something more 
than defend himself. The false beard 
was torn from its place ; and by the 
terrible look of rage and hatred which 
he could distinguish upon Harry’s face, 
he knew that he was discovered. Craw- 
ford was almost too breathless to speak ; 
but he hissed out a word or two which 
stung Stephen Endicott like a whip. 
“Traitor ! scoundrel ! ’’ he exclaimed ; 
and in the stress of the moment Stephen 
could almost have fallen on his knees 
and confessed the truth of the epithets. 
But he did not do it. He ceased to de- 
fend himself ; he struck back — struck 
once, and struck heavily — and that one 
blow was all. Crawford sank back- 
ward, without a word, without a groan. 
His fingers were entangled in Endicott’s 


AT Lilian's grave. 


89 


watch chain and dragged it from its 
place as he fell — the links snapping in 
his clenched hand. 

He lay still. Endicott expected 
words of abuse, a groan perhaps, a 
movement. But no sound came. A 
little quiver seemed to pass through the 
man’s prostrate frame as he lay upon 
the ground. Stephen stood over him 
with clenched hands and panting breast, 
waiting — waiting for him to struggle, to 
speak, to rise ; but there was nothing 
save silence and stillness, which became 
at last horrible to the living, breathing, 
hotly excited man. His hands grad- 
ually sank to his sides ; his breathing 
became quieter, his limbs lost their 
tension. He came a step nearer, and 
bent down. Nearer ! nearer ! he could 
not hear any sound : not even the sound 
of living breath. “ Harry ! ” he said, 
in a half-whisper, using the old familiar 
name. “Harry!” But there was no 
reply. 

The lantern still burned beside the 
grave. Endicott caught it up, and held 
it, with hands that trembled in spite of 
himself, to his old friend’s face. 

It was white, rigid, already settling in- 
to that profound peace which is never 
seen except upon the face of the dead. 
Endicott felt for the pulse ; but nothing 
fluttered at his wrist. The man’s spirit 
had departed, and only the lifeless clay 
remained behind. 


90 DR, endicott’s experiment. 


Stephen Endicott took a long time 
to convince himself of the fact. He 
chafed the hands and temples, he tried 
to pour brandy down the stiffening 
throat, he called on his friend by name, 
in agonizing accents, to rouse himself 
and tell him that he was yet alive. And 
all the time he knew that his efforts 
were in vain. His own medical knowl- 
edge told him that he could not bring 
back the pulse to Harry Crawford’s 
heart, the flow of blood through his 
veins, the strength to his arm ; these 
were gone forever, with the soul that 
had animated his body, and no prayers, 
no tears, no efforts could avail to bring 
them back. He was dead — the friend 
of Stephen’s boyish days was dead, slain 
by a blow from Endicott’s own hand — 
and Stephen was a murderer. 

Small shame was it to him that, when 
the truth was borne in upon his mind, 
Stephen Endicott threw up his arms in 
wild appeal to Heaven, and then sobbed 
out a passion of grief upon his friend’s 
dead breast. For he had loved Harry 
Crawford, and, in spite of all that had 
come between them, loved him still. 
He was not a man of quick affections, 
but, such as they were, they were strong. 
And in the darkness of the night, for a 
few brief, stormy minutes, he cried out : 
“ Would to God that I had died for you, 
my brother, my friend, my friend ! ” 

The striking of the church clock 


AT LILIAN S GRAVE. 


91 


broke upon his ear, and recalled him 
to himself. One — two — three — three 
o’clock in the morning, and half his 
work not done ! What should he do ? 
A sudden sense of his terrible position 
came to him with such force that it 
almost overturned his brain. What if 
he were found by some laborer going to 
his work at dawn, by some local con- 
stable on his rounds, or by the verger of 
the church, between the corpses of hus- 
band and of wife — the one in her open 
coffin, with peaceful, sm'iling face up- 
turned to the gloomy sky ; the other, 
stark and rigid upon the wet grass, with 
blood on his clothes and marks of vio- 
lence upon his body, to show how he 
had come to this untimely end ? And 
he, Stephen Endicott, the grave-robber, 
the murderer, powerless and gibbering 
in hopeless idiocy between the two ? 
This was the picture as it presented 
itself to the doctor’s mind, and struck 
him for a few minutes to a paralysis of 
helplessness. He trembled from head 
to foot ; he shivered with the sickness 
of such a horror as it is the lot of few 
human beings ever to know. After- 
ward he knew that his sanity had 
trembled in the balance, and that a man 
of weaker will and an intellect less clear 
and bold would have ended as a hopeless 
lunatic. 

It was a thought of Alice which saved 
him. What would become of the child. 


92 DR. ENDICOTT’S EXPERIMENT. 


if her father were hanged as a murderer 
or confined in a lunatic asylum ? For 
her sake he must command himself, and 
bend all thoughts toward the conceal- 
ment of his crime. Then came the 
remembrance of his object in rifling the 
grave of its treasure. What about his 
discovery ? his experiment ? Was he to 
abandon it, and to abandon also the 
hope of a great success in life, the hope 
of bringing a new alleviation to human 
pain ? No, he said to himself, that 
should not be. And thereupon there 
fell upon him a great fear lest the reward 
of his toil and travail should be lost to 
him after all, and lest the work of that 
night should be discovered to the world. 

He sat up and looked about him in 
sudden panic. Where was Martin ? 
Had he gone, the fool ? Yes, he seemed 
to have disappeared, but fortunately he 
had left his implements behind him. 
The worst was that the work which Dr. 
Endicott was bent on doing would be 
far more arduous and difficult without 
help than if Martin had been there to 
lend a hand. “ The dolt does not think 
that he will get that other twenty-five 
pounds after deserting me in this way, 
does he ? ” said the doctor angrily to 
himself. 

He stood erect, steadied his nerves 
by swallowing some brandy, then set 
himself doggedly to work at the task 
that lay before him. He had to lift the 


AT LILIAN S GRAVE. 


93 


dead body of Lilian Crawford out of 
the coffin, and this was a piece of work 
which, under ordinary circumstances, 
he could not possibly have accomplished 
without help. But at that moment he 
was capable of anything. After almost 
superhuman efforts, the long white fig- 
ure, in its grave-robes, lay upon the grass 
beside him, and he drew a long breath 
of relief, which was succeeded by a sharp 
gasp of agonizing fear. For surely, 
surely someone was coming up the 
lane which skirted the churchyard, and 
led from Fenby to the upper road. 

He hastily extinguished the lantern, 
drew the coarse sack over the white 
figure, and crouched down in the long 
grass beside the murdered man. 

The footsteps drew nearer and nearer. 
It was a heavy, deliberate tread, and 
Dr. Endicott believed that he recognized 
it as the tread of a heavy-footed consta- 
ble, who now and then went the rounds 
of the parish through the night. Prob- 
ably he had come this way because of 
the funeral that had taken place that 
afternoon. Probably the squire had 
told him to give a look at the church- 
yard that night — perhaps at the grave 
itself. For that he had been uneasy 
seemed quite certain ; some old story of 
body-snatching had worried him, per- 
haps, and sent him from his own bed at 
dead of night to patrol the graveyard 
for the satisfaction of his doubts. Con- 


94 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


stable Green probably had ' orders to 
enter in at the gate and walk round the 
grave itself to see that all was sure. 

These were the convictions of Ste- 
phen Endicott, and they turned him 
sick and cold with terror. Yes, surely 
he was right. The footsteps paused — 
there came the click of the gate as it 
turned upon its hinges ; the gravel of 
the pathway crunched beneath the po- 
liceman’s solid soles. How far would 
he come ? What did he see ? Stephen, 
lying flat and motionless upon the 
ground, held his breath in utter terror. 
His hand was clasped upon something 
in his trousers pocket — a neat, shining 
little toy, which he had brought out with 
him that night, and which, if necessary, 
he was ready to use, not on another if 
he could help it, but on himself. He 
did not intend to be taken alive, sup- 
posing that Constable Green saw him 
and came that way. 

But he was better protected than he 
knew. The grave was in a slight hol- 
low, and a great ash tree cast, even in 
the daytime, a thick shadow above it. 
Close behind the ash tree were a green 
bank and a lofty hedge. The night was 
very dark, and two or three rosebushes 
stood up between the pathway and the 
grave itself, thus hiding from a specta- 
tor’s eye the fact, which might possibly 
have been discerned by a keen observer 
even in the darkness, that there was a 


AT LILIAN'S GRAVE. 


95 


yawning trench where a green mound 
should have been, and that three silent 
figures lay on the wet ground at its side. 
Constable Green was a little short- 
sighted and decidedly obtuse. He saw 
nothing, and the stillness was unbroken. 
He paused as a dash of rain flung itself 
in his face, and decided that it was no 
use to go any further. Everything was 
quiet — “ quiet as the dead,” he muttered 
to himself. He turned round again and 
made his way to the gate. He had for- 
gotten his bull’s-eye, and he was rather 
glad to get away without encountering 
the squire, or any other person in au- 
thority. The squire had told him that 
he himself would probably walk round 
the churchyard about three o’clock in 
the morning. 

When the heavy footsteps died away, 
Stephen roused himself again. What 
more was there to do ? The night was 
getting on ; it was indeed early morn- 
ing now. His first plan* had been to 
carry both bodies away, but he recog- 
nized now that this would be well-nigh 
impossible. He could not carry both 
at once, and two journeys to the Manor 
House and back would involve a greater 
strain upon his nerves, as well as a 
greater expenditure of time, than he 
was prepared to allow. An idea then 
came to him which seemed like a verita- 
ble inspiration, though of evil rather 
than of good. 


g6 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


Why not bury the dead man in his 
wife’s grave ? Then there could be no 
discovery, no inquiry into the manner 
of his death. It might be supposed 
that he had gone abroad. He would 
repose there, safe and undisturbed. His 
boy would pass the grave with rever- 
ence and never learn that it was his 
father’s, and not his mother’s, resting 
place. It seemed the best, the most 
feasible plan. And so, with what strain 
and torture of body and of mind no 
one would ever know, Stephen Endicott 
at last succeeded in placing Harry 
Crawford in the dead woman’s coffin 
and in laying the coffin-lid above his 
clay-cold face. The man’s body was 
too long for the coffin, but the limbs 
were still supple, and Dr. Endicott had 
little difficulty in arranging them. And 
then came the easier task of shoveling 
the earth back into the grave. 

This did not take long. Stephen had 
carefully laid aside the green sods with 
which the mound had been banked up, 
and the flowers that had covered it. 
These could be replaced so as to look 
as if no one had touched them. The 
hardest part of his work was the stamp- 
ing down and pressing together of the 
soil, before the replacement of the green 
sods and the wreaths. It seemed to 
Endicott just then as if he were actually 
trampling upon his dead friend’s face. 

When the task was completed, he 


AT LILIANAS GRAVE. 


97 


Stood for a moment in silence. AVhat 
more could he do or say ? Yet, with 
an odd reversion to the belief and prac- 
tice of his youth, he felt as if it were not 
right to go away without the saying of a 
prayer over the remains. And yet how 
could he pray ? He stood in silence, 
then raised his hat from his head as if 
in reverence, and did not replace it until 
he had turned aside. He had no time 
to waste in sentiment. There was more 
to be done. And the church clock 
struck five. 

This was the hour at which many of 
the laboring men of Fenby went to their 
work. There was indeed no time to be 
lost. If he met one of them in the lane 
he might almost give up hope of escape. 
For the sight of a strange bearded man — 
no, not bearded by the way, for Harry 
had pulled the beard aside, and it had 
disappeared : probably it was buried in 
his grave — of Dr. Endicott, then, with 
a heavy sack on his shoulders, walking 
from the churchyard to his home — that 
would infallibly rouse suspicion. No, 
that risk must not be run. 

Lilian Crawford’s body was concealed 
in the sack, and lifted heavily to the 
doctor’s shoulders. He could not pos- 
sibly carry all his tools as well. But he 
hid some of them in the hedge, and 
thought that he should have time to 
fetch them away before anyone else was 
about. Then he walked to the gate, 


98 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


listened there for a moment to make 
sure that no one was coming along the 
lane, and made the best of his way to 
the path that led into the grounds of 
the Manor House. He was dangerously 
late — much later than he had expected 
to be — and in the country all sorts of 
folk were likely to be abroad at five 
o’clock in the morning. Laborers, farm 
people, gardeners, servants, whom might 
he not meet ? The weather was cer- 
tainly in his favor ; for rain had begun 
to fall steadily, and no one would come 
out who could stay at home. And, as 
it chanced, he reached the house with- 
out meeting a single soul. 

Yes, he was safe at last. So he said, 
as he deposited his burden on the labo- 
ratory floor, and locked and bolted and 
double-locked the door. But although 
he might be safe from actual pursuit 
and immediate discovery, his work was 
not yet done. He still had his tools to 
fetch — his spade and lantern, his pick- 
ax and minor implements. After a 
few minutes of repose, therefore, he once 
more sallied forth. This time he walked 
less hurriedly. Even if he met anyone, 
it need not be thought very strange that 
he should be out at that hour. All the 
servants knew that he was an early riser. 

Again he was successful. He found 
the tools as he had left them, and 
brought them back to the house without 
encountering anyone. He placed them 


AT Lilian’s grave. 


99 


on the floor beside the silent burden 
which meant so much to him ; then 
bolted and barred doors and windows, 
and made his way quietly to his own 
room. Here he divested himself of his 
rough clothes and hid them again in the 
box from which they had been taken. 
And here also he made a discovery. 
The keys still hung in the lock of his 
bureau, but it had been opened and 
partially ransacked. Not only the 
twenty-five pounds which he had 
promised to Martin Dale had been ex- 
tracted, but a large sum besides. It was 
very evident that the young man had 
given up the doctor’s experiment for 
lost, and, knowing that he would not be 
paid for the work that he had abandoned 
and that possibly he might meet with 
public disgrace, had chosen to help him- 
self out of the doctor’s stores and fly 
from the spot. He knew well enough 
that Endicott would not be inclined to 
prosecute. 

“ The fellow has not done badly,” 
said Stephen, with a curious smile. 
“ And it is all the better that he should 
be out of the way. He will know noth- 
ing about Crawford, at any rate.” 

Then a touch of human weakness over- 
came him. He turned sick and giddy ; 
he had only just time to get to his 
bed before an overwhelming fit of faint- 
ness blotted out the world to him for a 
time. The strain had been very great. 


lOO DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


and even Endicott’s herculean strength 
was not proof against it. When his 
faintness left him he was conscious of 
great exhaustion ; and before long he 
fell into a deep slumber which lasted for 
many hours. No one disturbed him, as 
it was well known that he often worked 
late into the night, and it was high noon 
before he roused himself next day. 

He woke to a feeling of terrible de- 
pression. Willingly would he have 
remained secluded in his room for the 
rest of the day ; every limb was aching, 
every pulse throbbed, and a feverish 
exhaustion seemed to have taken com- 
plete possession of him. But he dared 
not stay in retirement. Inquiries might 
be made ; suspicion would be excited ; 
and, moreover, the ghastly contents of 
that sack in the laboratory required 
instant attention. No delay was pos- 
sible there, if he were indeed to put 
the seal on his discoveries by a post- 
mortem examination of Lilian Craw- 
ford’s body. 

By a great effort, he dressed himself 
as usual and went downstairs to a late 
breakfast or luncheon, of which he 
forced himself to partake. He stealth- 
ily examined the faces of the servants 
to see whether he could read in them 
traces of suspicion, but there was 
nothing to be seen. One of the maids 
only came up to him with a semblance 
of hesitation. 


AT LILIAN'S GRAVE. 


lOI 


“If you please, sir, is Mr. Dale gone 
away ? ” 

“Yes,” said the doctor, with perfect 
ease. “ He took a night train to Lon- 
don, and will not be back for some time, 
if at all.” 

“ If you please, sir, ‘he’s not taken any 
luggage with him.” 

“ No,” said Endicott equably. “ I am 
to take it with me when I go up. Put 
his things together, if he has left them 
about.” 

“Yes, sir. And, if you please, sir, 
have you heard ” 

“ Heard what ? ” 

“ They say, sir, that Mr. Crawford of 
the Hall is a-missing, and can’t be found 
anywhere. And they say, sir, that he’s 
made away with himself for love of his 
wife.” 

“ Nonsense,” said Dr. Endicott. 
“ He’ll come home again, no doubt.” 

“ Perhaps so, sir,” said the maid- 
servant respectfully. “ But the general 
idea is that he’s shot himself or some- 
thing, not being able to bear the separa- 
tion, like.” 

“ Oh, I trust not ! ” said the doctor, in 
quite a sincere and natural tone. And 
then he went down to the laboratory, 
and applied himself to the work that 
wanted doing there. 


102 DR. ENDICOTT’S EXPERIMENT. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Harold’s guardian. 

'^HE village was ringing with the 
^ news. The s^juire had disappeared. 

Constable Green was the last person 
who had interviewed him. He re- 
ported that the squire had seemed 
“ oneasy-like,” and had told him to 
walk up the lane, by the churchyard, in 
the course of his night patrol. “ For 
my mind misgives me that there’s some- 
thing wrong brewing,” the squire said, 
“ and I should like to know that the 
churchyard is quiet, at any rate. I shall 
most likely walk round there. Green, 
about two or three in the morning. I 
should like to see for myself that it’s all 
right.” 

“ Now what could the squire ha’ been 
thinking was wrong ? ” was the villagers’ 
question. 

“ It’s my opinion,” said an old woman, 
who was listening to the talk, “ that he 
didn’t think the missus ’ud lay quiet in 
her grave. For it was him as sent her 
there, in a manner of speaking, and 
without a word of warning ; and maybe 
he thought that she had summat more 
to say.” 

” Howd your tongue, Sally Grier,” 
said the constable magisterially. “ The 
squire, he do know better nor that. I 


HAROLD'S GUARDIAN. 


103 


went myself, right round the churchyard, 
about three o’clock, but he wasn’t there 
hisself, nor nobody else ; and the place 
was still as the grave.” 

“ Mr. Jacobs is here. He can tell us 
whether it looked as though anyone had 
been nigh the grave last night,” said an- 
other man, as the sexton came into the 
room. Jacobs was a withered little old 
man, in a rusty black coat and battered 
silk hat with a piece of crape fastened 
round it ; he had a semi-ecclesiastical 
air, as of one who knew that he be- 
longed to the Establishment, and was 
treated with respect by all the fre- 
quenters of the Red Lion, where the 
conclave was being held. “ Mr. Jacobs 
can tell us,” said the plowman defer- 
entially, as he made way for the old 
man on the settle by the fire. 

“Aye, aye, all I know I can tell ye,” 
said Mr. Jacobs, in a high, thin voice. 
“ And it’s little enough on this occasion. 
The pore lady at the ’All has been took 
from us, and it seems likely that the 
pore squire have already followed of her 
to the Better Land.” 

“ Then you think the squire’s dead, 
Mr. Jacobs ? Do you think he’s made 
away wi’ hissen, loike ? ” 

“ Certainly not,” said Mr. Jacobs, with 
dignity. “I’m ashamed o’ ye. Will 
Stevens, to put a question like that to 
me. The squire knew his duty better 
than that, he did. No, he’s been strook 


104 dr. endicott's experiment. 


down by ‘ the visitation of God,’ some- 
where or other, and we shall find him 
stiff and stark in a day or two, and lay 
him aside of his pore wife, you may take 
my word for that.” 

There was a pause of awed admira- 
tion, during which Mr. Jacobs called for 
a pipe and a mug of beer, and when 
he had obtained both, he resumed his 
monologue. 

“I said it to the vicar, this morning, 
I did. I says to him, when I heard 
that Mr. Crawford was nowhere to be 
found, I says — ‘ Take my word for it, 
sir, we shall find as ’ow it’s the visitation 
of God,’ and the vicar, he says to me, 
* Jacobs, you’re generally right ; I don’t 
know how the parish would get on with- 
out ’ee,’ says he ; and I don’t deny but 
what he spoke the truth.” 

“ Was there any marks round about 
the grave next morning, Mr. Jacobs ? ” 
said one of the men. 

“ Marks there was, and plenty of ’em,” 
said Jacobs oracularly. “ No doubt Mr. 
Crawford had beenjthere, a-walkin’ round 
the grave of the dead lady, an’ maybe 
altering the arrangement of them 
wreaths. The place was pretty well 
trampled about ; but that was on’y 
what was to be expected, seeing as how 
such a crowd had been there the day 
before. It’ll be a long time afore that 
part o’ the churchyard looks trim an' 
neat again,” 


Harold’s guardian. 


105 


“ Pore little master, oop at t’ House, 
he be in a foine waay, I heer tell,” said 
the plowman. “Mother dead, feyther 
vanished away, loike ; what’s a-goin’ to 
become of ’un ?” 

“ The doctor’s a-looking arter him,” 
said Jacobs, with authority. “Parson 
towd me that, he did. ‘ Dr. Endicott’s 
a old friend,’ says he, ‘ and to the best 
o’ my belief he’s guardian, or summat 
to the little chap, and you couldn’t have 
a better man,’ says he. Not that I ever 
took a fancy to t’ doctor myself. He’s 
a down-looking chap, very silent an’ 
quare in his ways.” 

“ Let’s hope he’ll do right by the boy,” 
said one of Jacobs’ listeners, and with 
this sentiment the audience heartily 
agreed. 

The rumor that Dr. Endicott was guar- 
dian to the squire’s boy Avas truer than 
most rumors of the kind. But it was 
as yet only a rumor, caused chiefly by 
the doctor’s peculiar thoughtfulness and 
kindness toward little Harold. As soon 
as the news of Mr. Crawford’s disappear- 
ance was brought to his ears (for he 
could do nothing until that disappear- 
ance became matter of common talk) 
he conferred with the vicar, and then 
went up to the Hall, and offered to take 
little Harold to the Manor Plouse, so 
that he might have Alice for a com- 
panion. The vicar, who had some sus- 
picion that a quarrel had taken place 


io6 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


between him and the squire, looked 
rather shrewdly at him when he made 
this proposition. “And what will 
Crawford say when he comes home and 
finds that you have got his boy ? “ he 
said. 

Stephen had a terrible temptation to 
answer, “ He never will come home 
again.” But he commanded himself, 
and replied with great quietness, “ I 
do not think that he could object. 
-There are, I believe, no relations that 
can take the child.” 

“ That is true,” said the vicar re- 
flectively. “ And I can’t have him, 
that’s certain ; my children are down 
with measles. Well, take him home 
with you for a day or two, Endicott. 
I’m sure it’s very kind of you, and we 
may hear'from Crawford soon. I fancy 
he’s just gone off in his wild way to the 
ends of the earth — thinking to get rid 
of his sorrows in that manner — and that 
he will write to us before long.” 

“Very likely,” said Dr. Endicott. 
And all the time he knew that Harry 
Crawford was lying in his wife’s grave, 
and that Lilian’s body had found a rest- 
ing place at the Manor House, and would 
have to be disposed of in some way be- 
fore very long. He had made the ex- 
amination, and had gained the results 
he wished for ; but he had not yet given 
decent burial to poor Lilian’s remains. 

It sickened him to think of receiving 


Harold’s guardian. 


107 


Harold under the roof where his mother 
still lay unburied ; but there was noway 
out of the emergency. He, Stephen 
Endicott, was bound to act like the kind, 
thoughtful friend of the family, and in 
this character he could not leave Harold 
alone at the Hall. Besides, a consum- 
ing remorse was gradually taking pos- 
session of his soul. He had deprived 
the lad of a father ; what could he do 
but give him another home and as much 
fatherly care as it was in his power to 
bestow ? He brought him to the Manor 
House, therefore, although his soul re- 
volted against his own action ; and when 
this was settled he set himself to another 
task — that of disposing of those remains 
of the dead for which he had sacrificed 
so much. Until this was done — until 
his discovery had been perfected and 
the traces of his method removed — he 
would not give himself leisure to think. 
He refused to consider what had hap- 
pened, and what the world would say to 
it ; he refused to acknowledge to him- 
self that he had killed his oldest friend, 
and was in effect a murderer. “It was 
for the good of the world that he did 
it,” he obstinately continued to tell him- 
self. He had been obliged, unintention- 
ally, to do evil that good might come. 

Little did poor Harold guess what 
went on during the first night of his so- 
journ at the Manor House. It would 
no doubt have been safer if Dr. Endicott 


io8 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


could have put off his operations until 
a time when servants and all ordinary 
occupants of the house were absent ; 
but he found it impossible to wait. All 
he could do was to manage the matter 
with the utmost secrecy and dispatch. 
After some deliberation he fixed on acer- , 
tain patch of ground near the garden 
door of his laboratory : a bit of shrub- 
bery which was within sight of only one 
window of the house, and this window 
belonged to a room which Dr. Endicott 
had made his library. Hence he was 
able to insure himself against observa- 
tion by his servants. Having locked 
the library door, for two nights he toiled 
in the shrubbery, digging a deep pit or 
hole, which he made as little like a grave 
as possible. During the day that inter- 
vened, he concealed the hole by a cover 
of brushwood and bramble ; and then 
passed hours of torture lest anyone — 
child, or gardener, or stable-helper — 
should come that way and explore the 
recesses of that shrubbery. All day 
long he sat in the library, and looked 
from the window upon that fateful spot ; 
unable for once to read or write or even 
to think of anything, except of the horror 
that would accompany the discovery of 
the deed that he had done. 

On the second night it seemed to him, 
after long and exhausting labor, that he 
had made the pit deep enough. Then, 
in the early hours of the morning, he 


Harold’s guardian. 


109 


went once more into the laboratory, and 
brought out — something — enveloped in 
a cloth, something that was not fit to be 
looked on by the eye of man. Yet it 
was not with disgust and horror, but 
with feeling akin to reverence of the 
most sacred kind, that he laid what had 
once been Lilian Crawford’s body in the 
unhallowed grave which was all that he 
could give. And for a moment, at least, 
his eyes were dim with tears when the 
earth fell with a dull thud upon the dead 
woman’s breast, and half involuntarily 
he murmured to himself the words of 
the Burial Service : “ Ashes to ashes — 
dust to dust.” 

It was a last indulgence in what some 
men would have termed sentiment. 
When the grave was filled in, he 
straightened his bowed shoulders, stood 
up erect, and looked, with stern brow 
and set lips, toward the eastern sky, 
where the light of a new morning 
showed dim and pale. “ It is a new 
day ; ” so ran the unspoken thought. 
“ Let it be a new day in every respect. 
I have wrung this new discovery at the 
greatest possible risk and pain from the 
very lives of those that I loved. If I 
use it for the good of humanity ; if lives 
are saved by it, and souls are blessed ; 
surely my own guilt, my murderous 
blow, may be forgiven by the God — if 
God there be — to whom alone it is 
known ? Surely the fact that I have 


no DR. ENDICOTrS EXPERIMENT. 


unintentionally taken life may be coun- 
terbalanced by my power to preserve it. 
Let the new day open for me upon a 
new career, in which I swear to re- 
nounce my old ambitions and labor 
only for the good of humanity. I have 
not taken life to benefit myself ; I shall 
go mad unless I remember that. I am 
not guilty of murder ; I am the victim 
of circumstances, that is all. And 
therefore I can go about the world with 
head erect and a light heart, or at least 
a clear conscience, if not a light heart 
exactly ; and of what I have done I 
will not be ashamed.” 

And as he walked back to the house, 
his face was set in a stern composure 
which altered its lines and made it as 
the face of another man. 

There were surprises in store for the 
town of Bourneby and its neighboring 
village, Fenby, for the next few days 
and weeks. To begin with. Dr. Endi- 
cott suddenly manifested an extreme 
desire to take the Manor House for a 
term of years. He even expressed a 
hope of being able to buy it some day, 
but there did not seem much likelihood 
of his effecting the purchase, as its 
owner was not at all inclined to sell. 
But this owner, Major Marriott to wit, 
was rather pleased with the idea of 
letting the house for a term of years. 
He liked to live abroad, as he was in 
delicate health, and he was not at all in 


Harold’s guardian. 


Ill 


particularly good circumstances. Dr. 
Endicott was liberal in his offers, repre- 
senting that the place suited his re- 
quirements very well ; that his little 
daughter needed country air, and that 
he could leave her there with her gov- 
erness while he went up to London, 
whence he could return for the Sunday, 
Seeing him so anxious, Major Marriott 
drove a good bargain, as he considered, 
and let the Manor House of Fenby to 
him for seven, fourteen, or twenty-one 
years. He little thought that the chief 
attraction to Fenby, in Dr. Endicott’s 
eyes, lay in a certain oblong space of 
turf, half hidden by the overhanging 
branches of ilex and laurel bushes, 
where the woman was buried whose 
tombstone and epitaph confronted all 
beholders in Fenby churchyard. 

Scarcely had the excitement caused 
by Dr. Endicott’s determination to set- 
tle down in Fenby died away, when the 
interest of the inhabitants was piqued 
from another quarter. Some article of 
clothing belonging to Harry Crawford 
was found in the neighboring piece of 
water, and from this fact it was argued 
that he had drowned himself. In real- 
ity, the piece of clothing had come there 
through pure accident, and legally his 
death could not be proved ; but the law 
stepped in to provide for the guardian- 
ship of his son and the administration 
of his estates. And when a sufficient 


1 12 DR. ENDICOTT’S EXPERIMENT. 


time had passed away, it was found that 
Stephen Endicott was the man to whose 
hands the boy Harold had been in- 
trusted. Harry Crawford had left 
behind him a document in which he 
declared his full faith in his old friend’s 
integrity and kind-heartedness, and con- 
stituted him sole guardian of his son. 

This document had, of course, been 
executed before Crawford had quarreled 
with his friend, and it expressed his feel- 
ings at that time ; but it certainly struck 
remorse to Stephen Endicott’s soul. 
When he first heard it his head sank and 
his face turned pale. His impulse was 
to refuse the trust committed to him 
and refuse to have any responsibility 
with regard to Harold. But when he 
breathed a word to this effect the cler- 
gyman and the lawyer who were with 
him at the time ejaculated surprise and 
disapproval. 

“ My dear Endicott,” said the vicar, 
“ it is not like you to show unkindness 
to an orphan boy.” 

There is no unkindness about it,” 
said Endicott. “ I have reason to think 
that poor Crawford would have changed 
his mind, if he had had time. He and 
I had some — some slight disagreement 
before the late unfortunate occurrence, 
and I fancy that he ” 

“ Fancy ! What is fancy, my dear 
sir?” said the lawyer contemptuously. 
“Here is the written document, drawm 


HAROLD'S GUARDIAN. 


II3 


up by myself. I, if anyone, ought to 
know Mr. Crawford’s mind upon the 
matter, and he told me with his own 
lips that there was none in the world 
whom he trusted and respected as he 
did you.” 

Stephen Endicott sighed in spite of 
himself. The vicar looked at him 
curiously. He had had some experience 
of the world, and, if he were not so 
shrewd a man as the lawyer, he was at 
least more sympathetic. There was 
something in the shadow that hung over 
Endicott’s brow which startled him a 
little ; he did not know why. 

Endicott observed the look, and 
pulled himself together without loss of 
time. It would never do to let the 
vicar suspect that anything was wrong. 
Sooner than that, he must accept all the 
responsibilities of the position. 

“ I have no wish to draw back from 
an act of justice and kindness,” he said 
gravely. “Mr. and Mrs. Crawford 
showed me great friendliness, great 
hospitality, and I shall be glad to requite 
it in ever so small a degree ; but I 
hesitate lest I should seem to force 
myself into a position which the boy’s 
parents might not wish me to assume.” 

An unnecessarily elaborate speech, 
thought the vicar ; but he did not speak, 
and it was the lawyer who remarked in 
a grumbling tone : 

“ Why, you’ve had the boy in your 


1 14 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


house for the last few months, Endi- 
cott ! ” 

“That was a different matter from 
formally taking him under my guar- 
dianship,” said the doctor promptly. 
“ However, I am ready to do anything 
I can for him. There seem no friends 
likely to come forward on his behalf.” 

“And if there were,” said the vicar, 
“ there are no friends so likely to act in 
accordance with his father’s wishes as 
yourself.” 

Dr. Endicott seemed strangely im- 
pressed with this observation. 

“No,” he said, in a tone of deep feel- 
ing ; “ no — that is true. No one could 
be so anxious to do well by the boy as I 
should do. No one else could care for 
him so much.” 

“Very creditable to you, that feeling,” 
said the lawyer approvingly. “ Then I 
understand. Dr. Endicott, that you will 
take the trust committed to you by Mr. 
Crawford’s instructions ? ” 

“Yes,” said Stephen Endicott firmly. 
“I will.” 

And it puzzled the vicar afterward 
to reflect that he said it in the tone of 
one who takes upon himself a heavy 
burden ; a responsibility and a care 
which would tend to sadden and weigh 
down the whole of his future life. It 
seemed somewhat inexplicable to the 
vicar. 

However, neither he nor anyone else 


THE SON AND THE DAUGHTER. II5 


could find fault with the way in which 
the doctor performed his functions as 
Harold Crawford’s guardian during the 
next few years. He looked after the 
boy and the boy’s estate twice as well as 
Harold’s own father would have done. 
And for this reason, if for no other, all 
the world declared that Hal, as he was 
generally called, would do well to be 
very grateful to Stephen Endicott when 
he came to man’s estate. 

But gratitude, without affection, in- 
volves a strain upon a lad’s nature 
which is sometimes hard to endure. 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE SON AND THE DAUGHTER. 

^HE sunshine of a lovely day in July 
^ lay broad and bright over the 
meadowland round Fenby. In the 
gardens of Bourn eby Hall the light was 
subdued by the foliage of stately trees 
and carefully trimmed shrubberies, and 
the terrace lay deep in shadow before 
the house, which seemed half buried in 
clustering wreaths of clematis and rose. 

It was long since the Hall had been 
inhabited. The question of a tenant 
had been mooted again and again, but 
it had always been put aside. For this 
there had been several reasons. To be- 


Il6 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


gin with, the law had not pronounced 
Harry Crawford dead ; it had but al- 
lowed the very much encumbered estate 
to be administered for the benefit of his 
son. It was well known that Harry 
Crawford had disliked extremely the 
idea of letting the house to strangers, 
and his executors did not think them- 
selves precisely justified in doing what 
he would have forbidden. “ We should 
be in a nice hole if he came back again,” 
the lawyer had said to Dr. Endicott. 
And although the doctor knew well 
enough that Harry Crawford never 
would come back, he did not dare to act 
upon that knowledge. Then the boy, 
Harold, or Hal, as he was more famil- 
iarly termed, as soon as he was old 
enough to be consulted, also developed 
his father’s aversion to the idea of letting 
the house. He would rather be poor 
all his days, he said, than see the dear 
old place in the hands of strangers. 
And so Bourneby Hall had remained 
untenanted, except by a caretaker, for 
many a long day. 

The Manor House had been Hal’s 
home in holiday-time. Dr. Endicott 
had always made him welcome. The 
lad had been sent to Eton and Christ 
Church, and on an expensive foreign 
trip afterward. People wondered at Dr. 
Endicott’s cleverness in managing the 
property, for everyone knew that it was 
in an embarrassed state at the time of 


THE SON AND THE DAUGHTER. II7 


poor Harry Crawford’s disappearance. 
But the young fellow always seemed to 
have plenty of money, and lived like a 
man of fortune ; and he never suspected 
that his opulence and freedom from 
anxieties came through the quiet gener- 
osity of the man who called himself his 
guardian. 

But on this sunshiny July afternoon, 
there was an air of life and stir about 
the old Hall which betokened some new 
development of events. Smoke was ris- 
ing from the kitchen chimneys ; serv- 
ants occasionally appeared at the win- 
dow ; and on the terrace, beside the 
open glass door which had led of old to 
Lilian Crawford’s sitting room, stood a 
young girl, dressed in white, with an air 
of mingled expectancy and joy, which 
told of some delightful anticipation with 
which her heart was filled. 

She was a lovely girl, golden-haired 
and fair-skinned, with the great dark 
eyes which had been the distinguishing 
feature of her face in childhood, still 
expressive of a wonderful sweetness and 
an appealing trust. She had not much 
florid color, but its delicate tints showed 
perfect health, and there was the grace- 
fulness of muscular strength in every 
limb, although at first sight she seemed 
slender. But Alice Endicott’s training 
had included physical as well as mental 
education, and her father was almost 
prouder of her powers of endurance, her 


Il8 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


walking and riding and swimming, than 
of her achievements, which were by no 
means inconsiderable, in mathematics 
and physical science. She was a very 
good specimen of the modern girl, well 
educated, well trained in every respect ; 
and she possessed also, what some 
modern girls do not possess, a very 
sweet and loving nature, which ex- 
hibited itself in all relations of life. She 
was exceedingly devoted to her father, 
and very fond of Miss Murray, the lady 
who had lived at the Manor House and 
directed her education for several years ; 
she had plenty of affection for her 
friends, the vicar and his family, the 
girls whom she had met in London, the 
poor folk of the parish ; and, although 
she scarcely knew it as yet, she had 
given her heart, above all, to the friend 
and companion of her youth, the boy 
who had spent many weeks and months 
of his life in her society, Harold Craw- 
ford, the virtual owner and master of 
Bourneby Hall. 

No, she had not as yet found out how 
much she cared for him. But she knew 
that his home-coming brought joy to her 
heart, and she believed that he was as 
glad to return to her as she was to see 
him. And this particular home-coming 
was a special joy. For he had been 
away on his travels for nearly a year, 
and there was a rumor current — al- 
though it could not be traced to any 


THE SON AND THE DAUGHTER. II9 


written words of his — that he meant to 
settle down in his own home, and lead 
the life]of an English country gentleman. 
The law had now decreed that Harry 
Crawford was at last to be considered 
a dead man, and that his son and heir 
might take possession of his house and 
lands ; and although Harold had shown 
no eagerness to avail himself of the law’s 
consent (for he was now nearly three- 
and-twenty), yet the time seemed to 
have come for him to claim his own 
position in the place. 

He was expected that evening, but 
not until ten o’clock, so that Alice ha^d 
felt quite justified in stealing up into 
the Hall with a great basket of roses, 
with which she filled the vases in his 
mother’s room. She knew that that 
would please him. He remembered his 
mother with passionate affection, and 
her rooms were still sacred in his eyes. 
Alice also had been inspired by him 
with the same half-venerating devotion 
to her memory ; and in this sympathy 
of feeling there was a bond which 
drew them into closer union than they 
knew. 

She had made the room beautiful with 
her flowers, and turned to go — pausing 
a little at the open door to look at the 
lovely view of sun and shade — when a 
quick step rang out upon the terrace 
walk, and with a start she recognized 
the fact that Harold was there already, 


120 DR. ENDICOTT’S EXPERIMENT. 


was close upon her, and would find her 
at his mother’s door. 

She blushed deeply as he came up to 
her, half from pleasure, half from sur- 
prise. It was only when he grasped her 
hands and looked down, smiling, into her 
face that she was able to find words. 

“ O Hal ! We did not expect you 
yet — not until ten o’clock ; so I came 
up here to put some roses into the 
room.” 

“ I could not wait,” said Hal. “ I 
found myself in London with nothing 
to do, and I took the first train to 
Bourneby. Don’t say you are sorry to 
see me so soon ! ” 

“ Sorry ! I am very glad,” she an- 
swered, and there was a ring of sincerity 
in her voice which convinced him that 
the words were spoken from her heart. 

“ So am I very glad,” he said, re- 
luctantly letting her withdraw her slen- 
der hands from his close clasp. “ More 
glad than I can say. And you look just 
the same, Alice — nearly the same that 
is ” 

“ Oh, am I altered, Hal ? Do I look 
older ? ” 

“No,” he said slowly and medita- 
tively. “ Not older.” 

She pretended to pout a little. “ I 
want to look older. Miss Murray says 
I don’t look a day over eighteen, and 
you know I am nearly twenty-one.” 

“ Are you really ? Well, like Miss 


THE SON AND THE DAUGHTER. I2I 


Murray, I can only say that you don’t 
look it.” 

“ How do I look then ? You said I 
was ‘ nearly ’ the same : how have I 
altered ? ” 

“ I don't know how to tell you,” he 
said naively. “ I only meant that you 
look dearer and sweeter and prettier 
than you ever did, and I was half 
afraid that you would be offended if 
I put it into words.” 

She blushed a little, but she did not 
seem to be offended. A little smile 
came and went about the corners of 
her mouth. 

“ I am glad you think I look nice,” 
she said. “ Do you know, I was think- 
ing, Hal, how much you had — improved, 
if I may use the word.” 

“ I needed a lot of improvement, I 
know,” said Hal, somewhat remorse- 
fully. 

“ Oh, I don’t mean that. But you do 
look older — though I am afraid you 
won’t take it as a compliment ; and oh, 
Hal, how your mustache has grown ! ” 

They laughed gleefully, after the man- 
ner of youth, and then for a moment 
stood in silence, looking at one another 
as if they did not know how to turn their 
eyes away. 

He was a handsome man, and Alice 
was cognizant of the fact. But what 
she had always liked better than his 
beauty of form and feature — what she 


122 DR. ENDICOTT'S EXPERIMENT. 


now looked for most eagerly and found 
unchanged — was the kindliness of his 
eyes, the frankness and sincerity of his 
expression, the index, as she felt, to the 
real goodness of heart within. He was 
not much like his father : he had his 
mother’s look, but with it a strength of 
thew and sinew such as came from his 
father’s side. Two finer and more 
beautiful specimens of humanity could 
scarcely have been found in the British 
Isles than the two who now stood upon 
the terrace at Bourneby Hall. 

Alice’s eyes dropped first. I must 
be going home,” she said. 

“ Won’t you give me a few minutes ? ” 
he asked, with a new gentleness in his 
voice. “ Come into my mother’s room 
with me again ; how often we have been 
here before ! Alice, when I come here 
I almost feel as if I were entering a 
church. The place is sacred to me.” 

“ It is her memory that makes it so. 
Her presence seems to hang about it 
still.” 

He drew her by the hand over the 
threshold, and they stood together in 
the room where Lilian Crawford had 
spent so many of her hours — hours 
sometimes of joy, sometimes of acutest 
suffering. Harold’s eyes softened as he 
looked round. Nothing was changed : 
everything was as it had been in his 
mother’s time, except that a beautiful 
water-color sketch of Mrs. Crawford, 


THE SON AND THE DAUGHTER. I23 


executed a few months only before her 
death, hung above the mantelpiece, in 
the place where a portrait of Hal him- 
self, as a child, used to be. 

“ You are right,” said the young man 
presently. “ It seems as if she still 
were here.” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I should not like the room to be 
changed in any way. It would seem 
like banishing her. Don’t you think so?” 

“ Ah, yes ! I could not bear to have 
anything changed,” said Alice, almost 
with passion. “ One almost expects to 
see her here again ” 

Hal put out his hand and took hers 
again. 

“ Nobody understands but you,” he 
said. “ Nobody can sympathize but 
you. I think, Alice, that you and I are 
the only people who remember her.” 

“ We remember her best,” said the 
girl. “ But the vicar remembers her 
very well, and often speaks to me of 
her.” 

“ But she is more to us than to any- 
body else,” persisted Harold. And I 
have been thinking, while I was away, a 
great deal about the permanence of af- 
fection, and what it means to keep the 
ties that are formed in childhood. All 
these memories of the past have become 
inexpressibly dear to me, Alice. They 
are dear to you, are they not ? ” 

“ Dearer,” she said, scarcely knowing 


124 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


how much her words implied ; “ dearer 
than anything else on earth ! ” 

“ Is there any reason,” he asked, 
“ why they ever should be broken ? ” 

She did not answer, but the blood 
rushed to her face. His question threw 
her into strange confusion, and she 
scarcely knew what it meant. 

“ Is there any reason,” he asked 
again, “ why we should drift apart ? 
why other interests should come into 
our lives, and we should ever be alien- 
ated one from the other ? You would 
not like that, would you, Alice? Tell 
me that it would cost you dear, too.” 

“Yes, Harold, indeed it would,” she 
murmured. 

“ It seems to me, Alice, that it would 
break my heart. I have thought it all 
out, you see, while I was away ; and I 
see quite plainly that nobody in the 
whole world can be to me what you are, 
and that I can never love anyone as I 
love you. Alice, won’t you try to love 
me a little, too ? ” 

“ O Hal,” she said faintly, “ I have 
loved you all my life, you know. We 
have been like brother and sister.” 

“ But I don’t want to be like a brother 
to you any more,” said Hal. 

There was a little silence, during 
which he drew her closer to his side. 

“ Alice, won’t you be something even 
nearer and dearer than a sister? Will 
you not, one day, be my wife ? ” 


THE SON AND THE DAUGHTER. I25 


She could not answer quite coher- 
ently ; she stammered out something 
about “ never having thought,” “ not 
knowing exactly,” as girls, how cultured 
soever, are at such moments inclined to 
do ; but she did not repel his caressing 
hand, his circling arm, and he was 
emboldened, therefore, to continue his 
pleadings. 

“No woman could ever be half so 
dear to me,” he said. “ You fill my 
heart, my thoughts, my whole mind and 
soul. I have thought of you all the 
time that I was away. Alice, have yoU 
had no thought of me ? Don’t you 
care at all for me, or for my love ? ” 

“ Yes, I care,” she murmured, with a 
slight but expressive glance at him. 
But he would not be content without a 
more definite declaration. 

“ Do you love me, Alice ? ” 

“ Yes, Hal, I have always ” 

“ But enough to be my wife ? ” 

The answer was not very distinct, 
but by this time he understood, and 
knew that he might put his arms about 
her and press his lips to hers. The 
silence lasted unbroken for a few min- 
utes, and then he said softly : 

“ I think my mother would be glad.” 
“ Perhaps she sees us now,” said 
Alice. And then they looked at his 
mother’s portrait, and it seemed to them 
both as if her blessing fell upon their 
heads. 


126 DR. ENDICOTT’s EXPERIMENT 


What will my father say, I wonder,” 
the girl said at last. 

For the first time a contraction, a 
very faint contraction, showed itself 
upon Harold’s brow. He paused for a 
moment before replying. 

“ I will speak to him to-morrow.” 

“ Will you, Harold ? Or shall I tell 
him — to-night ? ” 

Would you rather, my darling ? 
No, it is cowardly to let you speak ” 

“ But, Hal, he will be pleased.” 

“ Will he ? ” said Hal. And then he 
looked away. But Alice gazed at him 
so anxiously that he smoothed his brow, 
kissed her again, and said soothingly ; 
“ I hope he will, dear. But when I 
think how unworthy I am of you, I can- 
not but feel that he will be justified if 
he objects to me very seriously as a 
husband for his treasure.” 

“ I am sure he can have no objec- 
tion,” Alice said, rather indignantly. 
“ And he was so fond of your father 
and mother, Hal, dear, and has always 
been so anxious and careful over your 
affairs, that I cannot feel as if he 
would have anything to say against 
it.” 

“Yes,” said Hal, a little doubtfully. 
“ And yet I have sometimes felt, Alice, 
as if your father did not like me.” 

“I am sure that must be a mistake,” 
said Alice, with great decision — so much 
decision, in fact, that Harold felt for a 


THE SON AND THE DAUGHTER. I27 


moment or two as if he must have been 
entirely in the wrong. 

And yet — yet — he could not but 
remember what had long been the 
inmost conviction of his mind ; that, for 
some reason or other, he was unwelcome 
in Stephen Endicott’s sight ; that the 
doctor tolerated him from a sense of 
duty, but was not in the least disposed 
to look upon him with an eye of favor. 
How he knew it he could not have told ; 
but that he did know it, he was certain, 
and not all Alice’s asseverations could 
convince him of the contrary. . 

After a little while they went out on 
the terrace again, and walked to and 
fro, while he poured into her ears some 
of his plans for the future and stories of 
the past. Alice listened like one en- 
tranced. All his visions were bright ; 
there was only one blot upon the sun- 
shine — and that lay in the memory of 
his father’s disappearance, the doubt 
whether Harry Crawford were alive or 
dead. He touched upon this subject, 
even in his conversation with Alice, at 
the supreme moment of his life. 

“ I have never felt satisfied,” he went 
on, “ that the whole truth came to light 
about my father. I think that a little 
more energy might perhaps have resulted 
in some discovery.” 

“I am sure my father did what he 
could, Hal,” said Alice, almost reproach- 
fully. 


128 DR. ENDICOTT’s EXPERIMENT. 


“ Yes, darling, I am sure he did. But 
one has just that feeling, you know — 
and even now I should like to examine 
all the evidence. I have never done it 
before, and surely it is a son’s duty in 
such a case as mine. Do you not think 
so?” 

And Alice certainly thought so — be- 
cause he did. 


CHAPTER X. 

A FALSE STEP. 

UAL walked home with Alice to the 
* * Manor House, but he did not stay 
there, for, as he had already written to 
tell his friends, he intended now to take 
up his abode at the Hall. He would 
not even dine at the Manor House, 
although Miss Murray, who was prac- 
tically guest-mistress, pressed him to 
return ; but he had a scruple against 
doing this until Dr. Endicott had heard 
what he had to say. Harold Crawford 
was scrupulously high-minded and hon- 
orable ; and although he had been be- 
trayed by the strength of his own feeling 
into an avowal of the passion that pos- 
sessed him, he was resolved not to 
encroach until he had obtained the doc- 
tor’s consent to his suit. And Dr. 
Endicott was not to be at home that 


A FALSE STEP. 


129 


night. He would not return to Fenby 
until the morrow, and Harold there- 
fore denied himself the delight of an 
evening with Alice and Miss Murray. 

It will easily be seen, from even this 
one fact, that Harold Crawford was not 
altogether a commonplace young man. 
He had a very sensitive nature, a noble 
ideal of what life should be, a chival- 
rous respect for all women. The only 
fault toward which he was inclined to 
be unforgiving was anything that 
savored of deceit. His creed on this 
point was severe. A deliberate con- 
cealment or falsification of the truth 
seemed to him an unpardonable sin. 
His mother’s finely toned, high-souled 
nature seemed to have been inherited 
by him ; but he had lost her before she 
could teach him to love and to pardon 
even where he was obliged to blame. 

This unbending truthfulness had 
plunged him into many scrapes during 
his boyhood, and not endeared him to 
Stephen Endicott, who, while valuing 
the quality, feared it, lest it should ever 
be brought into action against himself. 
He had never tried in the least to de- 
crease Harold’s love for the virtue of 
truth ; he had even praised it on neces- 
sary occasions ; but at the same time 
he almost hated him for it. If Hal had 
been a boy like other boys, with the 
shifts and evasions and ready decep- 
tions of the ordinary schoolboy, Stephen 


130 DR. ENDICOTT^S EXPERIMENT. 


Endicott felt that he could have liked 
him better. As it was he, the rich, 
well-known, successful doctor, was 
afraid of Hal Crawford. He tried most 
sedulously to do his duty by the lad ; 
but he was always happier when Harold 
was out of his sight, and he looked for- 
ward to the happy day, as he considered 
it, when his ward would be launched in 
life, and dependent on his good offices 
no longer. Then, he sometimes said to 
himself, he would leave Fenby. But 
there was a mysterious attraction about 
the place ; and it was borne in upon 
him now and then that he could never 
bear to live where from his study win- 
dow he could not see a certain spot 
which always seemed to him strangely 
bare and obvious, although it was 
screened with many an ingenious inven- 
tion from strangers’ eyes. 

He had turned a bit of the shrubbery 
into what he called a botanical garden, 
and given orders that the plants in it 
should never be disturbed, or even 
touched, except by himself. With his 
own hands he had made a little rockery 
above the spot that seemed to him so 
different from every other spot, and 
planted it with creeping plants and 
ferns. Even then it did not satisfy him, 
for Alice had one day exclaimed that it 
looked exactly like a monument ; and 
but for the fear of seeming eccentric 
and peculiar he would gladly have 


A FALSE STEP. 


I3I 


pulled down every stone again and 
scattered them far and wide. 

He was sitting in this study when 
Harold Crawford came to see him, soon 
after his arrival from town. He was at 
his desk, which stood in the center of 
the room, so that he could glance from 
his papers at any moment to Lilian 
Crawford’s unknown grave. He had a 
more superstitious feeling about this 
grave than he had about the one where 
Harry Crawford lay ; perhaps because 
it was more immediately under his eyes, 
for, as a matter of fact, he had never 
once entered the churchyard since the 
day when he buried Harry Crawford in 
Lilian’s coffin. His attachment to his 
“botanical garden” was often laugh- 
ingly commented on by his daughter, 
who could not understand why the little 
jest brought a shadow to his brow. 

Dr. Endicott laid down his pen and 
rose to his feet as Harold came into the 
room. 

“ Ah, Harold, here you are ! Alice 
told me you had arrived. How are you 
by this time ? ” 

The greeting was cheery, but the 
man’s eyes were cold. Harold, how- 
ever, was grateful for the greeting, and 
responded with effusion. 

“ I’m perfectly well, thank you, sir. I 
hope you’re all right, too. I haven’t 
seen you for such an age ! ” 

“ I am always well, thank you. Yes, 


132 DR. ENDICOTT’S experiment. 


it is some time since we met. Had a 
pleasant time ? ” 

“ Yes, delightful. But I’m glad to 
be back again, all the same. There is 
no place like Fenby.” 

Dr. Endicott shivered a little, in spite 
of himself. No, there was no place like 
Fenby, even to him. 

“ You think of living at the Hall, I 
think you said ? ” 

“Yes, I think so.” 

“ The place will be the better for a 
master. There are some accounts we 
must go into to-morrow or next day, 
and Jelf will want to see you,” Jelf 
was the lawyer. “ I think you will 
find things in a tolerably satisfactory 
condition.” 

“ I am sure I shall. Can you tell me 
offhand, sir, what is the exact amount 
of my income ? When you explained 
matters to me two years ago, I’m afraid 
I was not very attentive. But now I 
should like to know more exactly.” 

Dr. Endicott nodded, took a piece of 
paper, and jotted down a few figures. 
These he finally added up, wrote a word 
or two, and pushed the paper over 
toward the young man. Then he turned 
his face toward the window and looked 
at the rockery over Lilian’s grave. 

Harold read, stared, and gasped a 
little, as at something for which he was 
not prepared. 

“ Three thousand seven hundred a 


A FALSE STEP. 


133 


year,” he said. “ Why, I did not re- 
member that it was so much.” 

“ Rents have gone up,” said the 
doctor quietly. “ Then there was that 
legacy from an old friend of your father’s. 
It has increased your income materially.” 

Harold asked no question about “ the 
old friend.” Young people take it as 
so natural that they and their parents 
should have “ old friends.” In this case, 
the “ friend ” had been Stephen Endi- 
cott, masquerading under another name. 
It had seemed good to him to endow 
Harold Crawford with some of the 
wealth that had flowed into his hands 
on account of a certain discovery that 
owed its origin to the illness of Harold’s 
mother ; but of course it was impossible 
to let the young man guess the fact. 
So Harold was richer than he had 
known. 

“ And you think,” he said, with some 
hesitation, “ that I am justified in tak- 
ing upon me the responsibilities of the 
position?” 

“ Certainly,” said Dr. Endicott deci- 
sively. Why not ? The law has em- 
powered you to do so, as your father is 
hardly likely to be living, although no 
proof of his death exists.” 

“ Legally I know that I am in my 
right,” said Harold, still doubtfully, 
“ but morally — am I really entitled to 
act as if I knew of his death ? ” 

“ Of course you are.” 


134 dr. endicott’s experiment. 


“ And if he were not dead — if he 
came back — what ” 

Dr Endicott made a movement of im- 
patience. “ My dear fellow, why do 
you harp on that subject ? He will 
never come back. And if ” — he added, 
suddenly controlling himself — “ if that 
very unlikely event were to happen, no 
blame could be attached to you. He 
himself could not expect it to be other- 
wise." 

“ You speak very confidently of my 
father’s death, sir," said Harold, in all 
innocence. Have you had any further 
evidence ? " 

The doctor’s face showed some an- 
noyance. “ None," he answered shortly. 

“ I should like — ^just for my own 
satisfaction — to go over all the accounts 
of his disappearance,’’ pursued the 
young man. “ Coming to it in com- 
plete ignorance of the details — for I 
have never examined them in a business- 
like way — I might hit on something 
which passed unnoticed then ’’ 

“ Do you suppose that you are clev- 
erer than the experts ? The best detect- 
ives were called upon to examine the 
facts. I am sorry that you attribute 
carelessness to our good friend Jelf and 
myself — who were responsible," said Dr. 
Endicott, with a dryness of tone which 
made Harold’s heart jump into his 
mouth. 

“ I don’t — indeed I don’t ! ’’ he has- 


A FALSE STEP. 


135 


tened to say, with great earnestness. 

I know that everything was done that 
could be done. I owe you and Mr. 
Jelf the greatest gratitude for the care 
you took. I am well aware of that, sir. 
Pray, don’t think me unmindful of it. 
I only fancied — just for a moment — that 
I might think of something new — a son, 
you know, sir, might think of things 
that had been forgotten by others, don’t 
you think ? ” 

The pleading tone did not mollify 
Dr. Endicott’s anger. He still spoke 
with severity. 

“It is easy for the young to say what 
they would have done in circumstances 
in which they were never placed ; easier 
still for them to suppose that they would 
have managed a matter better than men 
of keen intellect and great experience. 
I cannot pretend to convince you of 
your error ; but I can assure you that 
the estimation in which you seem to 
hold yourself has not been justified by 
the reports I used to receive of your 
college career.” 

Harold flushed hotly. He knew that 
he had not done quite so well at Oxford 
as he was expected to do. At the same 
time Dr. Endicott had no business, he 
thought, to use that tone to him. It 
was the old manner, the old tone, that 
had cowed him now and then when he 
was a boy — the chilly sarcasm, the want 
of sympathy which had been so painful 


136 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


to him now and then. But he resolved 
that he would not be borne down by it 
now. He would strive to propitiate this 
cold, scornful man — not for his own, but 
for Alice’s sweet sake, remembering that 
after all he was the arbiter of his daugh- 
ter’s fate. 

“ I know — I know I was very pre- 
sumptuous, sir. I beg your pardon for 
seeming to take too much upon me.” 

“ Oh, it is what one expects from 
young men,” said the doctor coolly. 
“ I see a good deal of it at the hos- 
pitals. They learn better as they grow 
older — and so will you. Is there any- 
thing else you wanted to say ? ” And 
he fingered his papers, as though impa- 
tient to go on with his work. 

“ There is something else — something 
very important,” said Harold. The 
moment was not propitious, and yet he 
felt that he could not wait. “ I want to 
tell you, sir, that I found out when I 
was away what it was that had been the 
motive power and the ambition of my 
life. It has been my love — my true and 
earnest love — for your daughter, for 
Alice. I have loved her ever since she 
came here when we were children ; and 
I want to know, sir, if — if you will give 
her to me as my wife ?” 

He spoke rapidly and earnestly, rising 
from his chair as he spoke, and standing 
with one hand on his guardian’s desk. 
He was amazed at the sudden change in 


A FALSE STEP. 


137 


Dr. Endicott’s face. The doctor turned 
pale, then violently red, then white 
again. He did not speak, and for a 
moment it seemed as if he were posi- 
tively unable to open his lips. 

“You know all about me,” Harold 
went on hurriedly, with an impulse to 
make the most of his chance. “You 
know my defects, my unworthiness of 
her. But I could give her a home that 
she would love — she loves it already — 
and I think I could make her happy.” 

“ You have spoken to her ? ” 

The irritation and satire had entirely 
disappeared. Stephen Endicott spoke 
in a low broken voice, as if he had 
received some sudden shock. Harold 
looked at him curiously as he answered : 

“Yes, sir, I spoke last night. I know 
I ought to have waited — to have asked 
you first — but I could not help myself. 
And she loves me, too — you won’t put a 
barrier between us ; will you, sir ? ” 

Dr. Endicott pushed back his chair, 
and rose in evident agitation. 

“ I never thought of this,” he mut- 
tered, scarcely perhaps meaning Harold 
to hear. 

“ I hope you will think of it now, sir,” 
ventured the young man. 

“ You say you have spoken to Alice ? ” 
“ Yes.’’ 

“ And you think she cares for you ? ” 
“I am sure she does.” A modest 
triumph shone in Harold’s eyes. 


138 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


Stephen Endicott made some hasty 
exclamation beneath his breath which 
Harold could not catch. And perhaps 
it was just as well, for the exclamation 
was not of a complimentary nature to 
the man who had won his daughter’s 
heart. 

“ I must speak to Alice before I give 
you an answer,” the doctor said at 
length, in a calmer but very gloomy 
tone. “ I am taken by surprise. I 
have nothing against you — no ; but I 
had not thought of you as a husband for 
my daughter. And in point of fact, 
Harold” — assuming a friendlier tone — 

I cannot disguise from you that your 
proposal puts me in a somewhat awk- 
ward position.” 

“ I don’t see why,” said Harold 
eagerly. 

“ I have been your guardian, and I 
am — a man of honor,” said Stephen 
Endicott, in a lofty tone. (Yet his eyes 
were fixed on Lilian Crawford’s grave 
the while he spoke.) “ It will be said 
that I have been guided by self-interest, 
and thrown my daughter in your way. 
That is an imputation which I should 
deeply resent.” 

“ I should think so indeed ! Every- 
one who knows you would know how 
unmerited it was. Why, Alice might 
marry anyone she pleases. I’m a shock- 
ing bad match for her,” said Harold, 
with a laugh. It seemed to him that 


A FALSE STEP. 


139 


Dr. Endicott’s objection was but a 
trifling one. But the doctor did not 
smile. 

“ I can give her a dowry, of course,” 
he said, as if that was the least part of 
the matter. “ But I must consider, 
Harold. I trust to you not to say any- 
thing more to Alice until I have seen 
her — until I have thought over the 
matter.” 

“Very well, sir,” said Harold, a little 
ruefully. “ But when may I have your 
answer ? ” 

Dr. Endicott was silent for a moment. 
“ Next week,” he said at last, looking 
out upon Lilian’s grave ; “ next week ; 
and you will not try to see Alice until 
then, remember.” 

“ This is Thursday,” said Harold, 
rather ruefully. “ Must I wait so 
long ? ” 

“ Do you wish to rush upon your 
doom ? ” said Dr. Endicott, with a 
sudden flash of something like grim 
humor. And Harold took his leave 
with more depression of spirits than he 
would have thought possible earlier in 
the day. 

But in the hall he met Alice. She 
had been wandering restlessly about the 
house, wondering why the interview be- 
tween her father and Harold should last 
so long, and when, finally, he came out 
of the study, she flevv to meet him, and 
put her hands upon his arm. 


140 DR. ENDICOTT'S EXPERIMENT. 


“ What did father say ? ” 

“ I am not to try to see you, darling, 
until Monday,” said the young man. 
“ He wants a little time to consider, and 
he wants to talk to you first — to tell you 
how unworthy I am, I suppose.” 

“ That is nonsense,” said Alice de- 
cidedly, “ and I shall tell him so. 
Where could he find anybody nicer and 
better than you ? I am sure he knows 
that ; but he is so careful of me that per- 
haps he just wants to ask me what I 
think — so don’t be cast down, Hal, 
dear.” 

“ You do love me ; don’t you, Alice ? ” 

“ Of course, I do ; with all my heart.” 

“ And you — you — won’t give me up ?” 

‘‘ Never ! ” said the girl. And then 
the lovers exchanged a long, silent kiss ; 
after which Harold departed, very much 
consoled and quieted in mind. 

Meanwhile Stephen Endicott, locked 
in his own room, sat with his head bowed 
upon his hands, thinking over the events 
of the past years and the tokens of the 
future. ” What shall I do ? what shall 
I do ?” he was saying to himself. “ Is 
this the way out of the difficulty ? Is 
this the way in which the harm, the 
wrong-doing, is to be remedied ? If so, 
I am happier than I thought ! But it 
cannot be ! ” 

He rose and began to pace the room 
with hurried, uneven steps. “ Can I let 
him do it ?” he said to himself. “ Shall 


THE vicar's help. 


I4I 


the son of a murdered man marry the 
daughter of the murderer ? On first 
sight, it seems a revolting thought. But 
perhaps there is no other way of blinding 
his eyes, of making him put aside the 
suspicion with which he seems to be 
haunted ! If ever he came to know — 
my God ! what would become of me ? 
and what would happen to my child ! " 


CHAPTER XI. 

THE vicar’s help. 

COR the next three days Harold was 
^ lonely and miserable indeed. His 
only solace lay in visiting his old friends 
in the village, and particularly in renew- 
ing his acquaintance with the vicar, 
who, as he knew, had been a friend of 
his parents in days gone by. Mr. 
Wykeham was a shrewd and kindly man, 
with a keen eye and a sense of the 
humorous which does not always exist 
among the country clergy. His wife 
was as kindly as he, but she was by no 
means clever ; a feather-bed of a woman, 
of whom most people were fond. 

It was not long before Mr. Wykeham 
found out that something was wrong 
with Harold. When he had come in 
for the second time on Saturday, in a 
restless way which was not customary 


142 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


with him, and had refused a cigar which 
the vicar offered him, Mr. Wykeham 
felt that the time had come for an 
inquiry. 

“ Why, Hal,” he said, “ you’re not 
like yourself. What’s wrong ? ” 

“ Nothing,” said Hal, laughing a little 
nervously. “ At least I hope not.” 

“You hope not ? I know what it is 
— you young fellows are all alike ; 
you’ve lost your heart to some pretty 
girl or other, and don’t know whether 
she will have you.” 

“You’re not quite right, vicar, but 
you come near it. I’m not afraid 
about her, but about her father.” 

“ It would be an odd sort of father 
who would take exception to you, young 
man,” thought the vicar, but he did not 
say so. He sat silent, and waited for 
further explanations. 

“ It’s Alice,” said Harold, goaded by 
the silence into frankness. 

“ Alice ! Not Alice Endicott ! ” 

“ Why not, I should like to know ? ” 
exclaimed Harold, firing up. “ What is 
there to object to in my choice ? Why 
does her father object to me ? I beg 
your pardon, vicar, if I speak too hotly ; 
but there’s something about all this that 
I do not understand.” 

“ You mistake, my dear boy. There 
is nothing extraordinary in your choice. 
Alice is a sweet, good girl, clever and 
pretty and refined ; I am not in the 


THE vicar's help. 


143 


least surprised that you should admire 
her.” 

And yet there was an inscrutable dis- 
satisfaction in the vicar’s tone. 

And my father was her father’s dear- 
est friend,” said Hal, rather defiantly. 

The vicar said nothing. 

“ Do you mean to tell me that he was 
not?” demanded Harold, more in sur- 
prise than indignation. 

The vicar crossed one leg over the 
other, and laughed a little. 

“ How you boys do run on,” he said, 
good-humoredly. “ Of course, they 
were great friends — friends almost all 
their life, I believe. There was some 
little rumor of a disagreement at one 
point — I heard Dr. Endicott say some- 
thing about it ; but I do not suppose 
that it really impaired the friendship of 
a lifetime.” 

“ No, I don’t suppose it did,” said 
Harold, with a touch of defiance. But 
his tone fell a little. “ I have not heard 
Dr. Endicott talk about my parents,” 
he remarked. 

“ There seemed to be a great intimacy 
between them,” the vicar answered 
cautiously. 

Harold moved uneasily in his chair. 
It still appeared to him that something 
lay hidden behind the vicar’s caution 
and the doctor's hesitation. But what 
it was he could not put into words. A 
kindred subject occurred to his mind. 


144 endicott’s experiment. 


“ Mr. Wykeham,” he said, somewhat 
awkwardly, “ I was thinking — while I 
was away — that I know very little about 
the circumstances attending my father’s 
disappearance.” 

“ No ? ” said the vicar. 

“ They tell me,” the young man went 
on, “ that I am quite right in believing — 
now, at this distance of time — that he is 
dead.” 

“Quite, I should think, my boy. 
There can be no other explanation of 
his fate.” 

“ And still I cannot help feeling that 
one ought to be able to get at the details 
a little more clearly. I know everything 
was done that could be done at the time, 
but ” 

“ You think you could have done 
more ? ” 

“That’s something like what the 
doctor said,” remarked Harold rue- 
fully. 

“ You have mentioned the subject to 
him ? ” 

“Yes. And I’m afraid I blundered 
over it — made him fancy 1 thought he 
had been neglectful or something. He 
was annoyed, I am afraid — very much 
annoyed. And yet it seemed to me a 
natural thing enough that I should want 
to be assured that everything was done 
properly.” 

“ Of course — of course, most natural,” 
said the vicar. 


THE VICAR'S HELP. 


145 


“ You don’t blame me then, sir ? ” 
Harold asked anxiously. 

“ Certainly not. Perfectly natural 
and right. You don’t mean that the 
doctor blamed you ? No doubt he was 
annoyed for a moment, but ” 

“ More than that,” said Harold, with 
a rather reluctant smile. “He was 
downright angry.” 

“ Rather imprudent of you to have 
made him angry just when you wanted 
to ask him for his daughter, eh ? ” 

“ I suppose it was. I had no idea 
that he would be vexed. Of course, I 
can’t say any more to him on the sub- 
ject.” 

“ I think I can assure you,” said the 
vicar kindly, “ that everything was done 
that ought to be done, Harold. The 
whole countryside was in a ferment. 
We had the best men down from Scot- 
land Yard ; but there was absolutely no 
trace of your poor father to be found. 
He disappeared completely. Almost 
the last man who saw him alive seems to 
have been Constable Green, who spoke 
to him late on the night of your poor 
mother’s funeral. He was then well — 
sane — in great trouble, of course, but in 
other respects as hale a man and as 
likely to see threescore years and ten as 
any man you ever saw.” 

Harold kept a gloomy silence for a 
minute or two. 

“ It looks as if he had met with 


146 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


foul play,” he said at last, under his 
breath. 

“ He was the last man to have an 
enemy,” said the vicar musingly. 

“ There seems no other explanation.” 

“ I’ll tell you what,” said Mr. Wyke- 
ham, rising abruptly from his chair, 
“ I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Harold, if 
you like. I preserved all the papers 
and documents relating to the case. 
There were full published reports ; and 
I have also several letters from the de- 
tectives. Now, if you like, I will put 
all these papers in your hands, and let 
you read them from beginning to end. 
That may satisfy your mind, at any rate, 
that we did at the time all that we 
could.” 

“ I am sure you did, sir,” said Hal, 
with brightening eyes ; “ but I should 
like to see 'the papers. I was such a 
little chap when it all happened, you 
know, that I did not understand ; and 
later on, I scarcely liked to ask. But 
now it seem to me that it is my duty.” 

“Quite right, my lad, quite right,” 
said the vicar approvingly. 

“ And especially,” Harold continued, 
“since I am thinking of marrying and 
settling down in the old house.” 

“Ah, exactly ! ” said Mr. Wykeham, 
and Harold wondered why the heartiness 
seemed to have died out of his tone. 

“ Why didn’t the boy make his inves- 
tigations before he declared himself to 


THE VICAR S HELP. 


147 


Alice Endicott ? ” the vicar was think- 
ing, and did not stop to realize the 
doubts that he was in reality throwing 
upon the character and good faith of 
Alice Endicott's father. But, fortu- 
nately, perhaps, for our own happiness, 
we seldom follow out a train of thought 
to its quite logical conclusion. And 
Mr. Wykeham, while conscious of an 
uncomfortable suspicion, long enter- 
tained, that Dr. Endicott knew more 
of Harry Crawford’s death than he 
chose to say, did not exactly mean that 
Harold was likely to discover proof of 
actual guilt in the man whose daughter 
he wished to marry. 

He produced a pile of papers and 
offered them to his guest. “ Sit down 
and look at them,” he said kindly. 
“You’re at a loose end, I know, with 
nothing to do ; you’ll have time to 
glance over them this afternoon.” 

But Harold preferred to take the 
papers home with him. It seemed to 
him that he could examine them more 
easily and accurately in his own house 
than in Mr. Wykeham’s library. He 
made them all into a loosely tied parcel, 
and walked briskly back to Bourneby 
Hall. As he reached the entrance to 
his own grounds, from the lane which 
ran between the garden and the church- 
yard, he was accosted by a man whom 
he did not know, evidently a stranger 
in the place. 


148 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


“ I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. 
“ Can you tell me whether a Mr. Craw- 
ford’s living in this place ? ” 

“My name is Crawford,” answered 
Harold, looking at him sharply. “ What 
do you want ? ” 

He was not prepossessed by the man’s 
appearance, which was seedy and un- 
kempt in the extreme. He was tall, 
painfully thin, and clad in shabby black ; 
his face, marked with smallpox scars, 
was pale and haggard, but blotched here 
and there with patches of unhealthy 
color which betokened dissipation or 
illness of long standing ; his shifty, rest- 
less eyes were reddened about the rims, 
his hands shook as he moved them 
when speaking to a stranger. Harold 
set him down in his own mind as an 
habitual sot ; a man who did not get 
drunk, but who “soaked” perpetually. 
The young squire had a dislike to fel- 
lows of this sort ; it seemed to him 
that they scarcely deserved the name 
of men. 

The stranger looked at him, started a 
little, and spoke in a curiously husky, 
yet insinuating, tone. 

“You’re young Mr. Crawford, I be- 
lieve. It’s your father that I think I 
want to see, sir.” 

It was Harold’s turn to start. “ My 
father!” he said. “You cannot have 
been to this place for many years, 
then ? ” 


THE vicar’s help. 


149 


“ Oh, he’s dead, is he ? ” said the man 
quickly. 

Harold almost wished that he could 
answer yes. 

“ We fear that he is dead,” he an- 
swered gravely. “At any rate, he is not 
here — not to be found. What is your 
business with him ? ” 

The man replied only by a counter- 
question : 

“Where is he? When did he go 
away,” he asked. “Is it long ” 

Harold’s brow contracted ; but he 
made an effort to answer civilly. 

“ My father has not been here since ” 
— he mentioned the year of his mother’s 
death. “ If you have any business with 
him, any information to give, it is with 
me that you have to deal. Perhaps you 
know something about him ? Perhaps ” 
— with a dawning hope — “ you have 
news to give us ? You know that he — 
that he — is still — alive ? ” 

The man looked at him with gather- 
ing surprise. 

“I’m afraid I don’t quite know what 
you’re driving at, sir,” he said, with a 
mixture of servility and familiarity which 
Harold inwardly resented. “ Do you 
mean that you don’t know whether he’s 
alive or dead ? ” 

“That is the state of the case. I 
thought everyone in this part of the 
country knew it, or I should not discuss 
family matters with a stranger,” said 


150 DR. ENDICOTT'S EXPERIMENT. 


Harold, a little haughtily. “ He has 
not been seen here since the day of my 
mother’s funeral.” 

He could not help being astonished 
at the effect produced upon the stranger 
by this communication. The man drew 
back for a moment with a look of the 
profoundest amazement, and an excla- 
mation which Harold thought at th(^ 
least inappropriate. 

“ The devil he hasn’t ! ” said the 
stranger, and stared at Harold more 
than ever. Then he burst out into a 
short, sharp laugh, and asked another 
question : “ What became of Stephen 

Endicott then ? ” 

“ He lives at the Manor House, over 
there,” said Harold, repressing a desire 
to kick the questioner. “You had 
better go to him, if you want to ask any- 
thing else.” 

“ By the Lord, I will ! ” said the man, 
as he turned away. There was an odd, 
evil smile on his wide, pale lips. “ And 
you’re — friends — with him, are you?” 

“What do you mean ? ” cried Harold, 
losing his temper at last. “ What do 
you mean, you insolent fellow? Of 
course, I am on friendly terms with my 
father’s old friend, and what have you 
to say against it ? Be off with you ; 
don’t let me see you about my place 
again. Go to the doctor ; he’ll settle 
matters with you fast enough.” 

“ All right,” said the stranger coolly. 


THE vicar's help. 


151 


I’ll tell him I came from you. Good- 
evening, sir. I think I saw your father 
more recently than you have done — but 
I’ll talk it over with the doctor.” 

He flung the last words back over his 
shoulder, as he walked up the lane — not 
to the doctor’s house, however, but to 
the churchyard. Harold stood with his 
hand on the topmost rail of the gate, 
panting with anger, yet almost inclined 
to run after the man and force him to 
explain himself. Still — if he were going 
to the doctor’s, it would perhaps be 
almost better for him to speak with Ste- 
phen Endicott than with Harold him- 
self. The young man felt that it would 
be impossible for him to listen calmly 
and dispassionately to what the stranger 
had to say. There was a natural an- 
tipathy between them. 

He turned, therefore, and went back 
to the house. 

Ensconced in the library, he spread the 
papers out before him, and went through 
them carefully. There was not very 
much, after all. Half a dozen news- 
papers, a few letters, a carefully written 
statement taken down by Mr, Wykeham 
from the lips of servant, sexton, and con- 
stable, of all they had seen of Harry 
Crawford on the day of his wife’s fune- 
ral. Even Harold’s shrewd sense and 
keen eyes could detect nothing abnor- 
mal in the story. There seemed to have 
been no sign of any mental or physical 


152 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


disturbance — other than the deep grief 
for his wife’s death from which he was 
evidently suffering. There had been no 
hint of suicide, no wish expressed even 
to leave the neighborhood. There was 
indeed a note from him to the vicar, in 
which lie declared his intention of lead- 
ing a quieter life, and of economizing for 
the sake of his boy. “ That does not 
sound as if he were contemplating a vio- 
lent end or sudden disappearance.” said 
Harold, pushing away the paper at last 
with a baffled sense of disappointment. 

He now felt bitterly the futility of his 
search. He recognized the truth of Dr. 
Endicott’s statement that everything 
had been done, and that no stone had 
been left unturned in the search for the 
missing man. He had some remorse in 
his mind, as this thought occurred to 
him. No wonder Dr. Endicott had 
been indignant ! And what a fool he 
had been to vex the doctor by such 
seeming distrust just when he was ask- 
ing him for Alice’s hand ! Even the 
vicar had seen and demonstrated his 
folly to him. 

. The vicar ! His name started a fresh 
train of thought. What was the mean- 
ing of his odd tone and manner ? There 
had been something unexplained, Harold 
was sure of that. The testimony of the 
papers seemed conclusive enough ; but 
the young man did not feel convinced. 
He had a curious sensation of some 


THE vicar’s help. 


153 


coming disaster — was it a premonition 
of the truth ? There flashed across his 
mind a memory of the words that the 
strange man in the shabby black clothes 
had used — that he had seen Harry 
Crawford more lately than almost any- 
one else had done. Did that m.ean that 
Harry Crawford was living now ? 

Harold grew so uneasy and excited 
over this possibility that he could not 
rest at home. He walked down to the 
village inn, and made inquiries as to 
the guests now staying there ; but he 
could hear of nobody who answered to 
the description that he gave. The 
landlord opined that the stranger had 
walked over from Bourn eby, and was 
staying there. If anyone like him came 
to the Red Lion, he promised to send 
up to the Hall and let “ young measter” 
know. Harold took a stroll round by 
the churchyard and the lane, but he 
could see nothing of the stranger. 
Later in the evening he carried the 
papers back to Mr. Wykeham, and 
informed him of the coloquy which he 
had had. 

“ That’s odd,” said the vicar. 

“ Why is it odd ? ” Harold demanded 
eagerly. 

“ Well, I don’t know,” Mr. Wykeham 
answered rather lamely, feeling that he 
had been indiscreet. “ I only mean 
that there was a man in Fenby hanging 
about Dr. Endicott’s place at the time — 


154 dr. endicott’s experiment. 


a lanky, tall fellow, marked with small- 
pox. I forget his name, but I think he 
was an assistant to the doctor, or some- 
thing of that kind.” 

What makes you remember him ? ” 
“ Simply, I think, the fact that he 
came to your dear mother’s funeral, 
Harold. I wondered a little, 1 remem- 
ber, to see-him there.” 

“ And afterward ” 

“ I never saw him again. Endicott 
would probably know all about him.” 

“ I will ask Dr. Endicott,” said 
Harold. 


CHAPTER XH. 

ON EQUAL TERMS. 

IT was not often now that Dr. Endi- 
* cott entered his laboratory. He 
seemed to have taken a violent dislike 
to the place. Generally, therefore, it 
was shut up, seldom cleaned or put in 
order, and the creepers from outside 
had almost grown over the garden door. 
So thick was this growth, indeed, that 
Alice had once innocently remarked 
that the door would soon be entirely 
hidden, and that nobody would know 
that it was there ; and was astonished 
by the start and sudden rush of color 
over her father’s usually impassive face 


ON EQUAL TERMS. 


155 


that she then remarked. As a matter 
of fact. Dr. Endicott had been encour- 
aging the growth of these plants for 
some time back, and had hoped that no- 
body would observe how thickly their 
branches were fastening up that hated 
door — the door through which Lilian’s 
body had twice been carried — first from 
the churchyard, and thence to its last 
unhallowed resting-place in the doctor’s 
garden ; and he was somewhat annoyed 
when public notice was taken of his 
proceedings. Alice always knew in- 
stinctively when her father was vexed 
by anything that occurred, and although 
his vexation was sometimes inexplicable, 
she respected it. Nothing more was 
said about the creepers, therefore, and 
they grew on undisturbed. 

It was on a Sunday evening — the Sun- 
day after Harold’s return, and during 
the pause for reflection which Dr. Endi- 
cott had decreed before he would give 
any answer to the young man’s proposal 
— that the doctor felt impelled, by some 
curious chain of ideas, to walk into his 
workroom, as he sometimes called it, 
and to turn up the gas. The light 
flared with a blinding, yellow glare, and 
the flame hissed and sputtered as the 
doctor turned it to its full height. 
Having done this, he folded his arms, 
and looked round him. He had not 
been inside the room for months. 

Dust lay thickly on the deal table, 


156 DR. ENDICOTT’S experiment. 


and on the other scanty articles of fur- 
niture which stood by the walls. There 
were cobwebs in the corners ; a general 
air of neglect hung about the place. 
Stephen Endicott’s mind was busy, 
however, with the past rather than with 
the present. He was thinking of the 
night when he, with Martin Dale, had 
prepared for a certain ghoul-like ex- 
pedition, and when he had returned 
alone — bearing with him a burden which 
he had laid first upon that floor and 
then on the wooden table. He thought 
of the terror with which he realized 
the fact that Martin Dale had fled — 
terror followed by relief when he also 
found that Martin Dale did not come 
back again. For the secret of his life 
lay in this man’s hand, and it was not a 
pleasant reflection for the successful 
and applauded physician, that at any 
moment — if indeed Martin Dale were 
still alive — the whole fabric of his fair 
reputation might be smitten and fall 
to the ground, while he became the 
target for arrows of never-ending 
shame. 

Yes, shame ; for much as he told 
himself that he had been justified in 
extracting information from Lilian 
Crawford’s dead body, he could not so 
easily acquit himself from blame with 
respect to the fate of her husband. 
True, he had killed him by sheer acci- 
dent, by an unlucky blow struck only in 


ON EQUAL TERMS. 


157 


self-defense in a cause which all Eng- 
land would have condemned. In any 
other case, he told himself, he would 
boldly have faced the consequences of 
his deed, and acknowledged it to the 
world ; but how could he tell the world 
that he had been engaged in robbing 
a grave ? The grave, too, of a sweet, 
good woman, who had been his friend. 
Why, if he escaped the law, an English 
crowd would tear him to pieces for 
what they would call a vile piece of 
sacrilege and treachery ! He would 
have to surrender his position, live 
abroad, change his name. Alice’s fu- 
ture would be blighted, and she per- 
haps would also look on him with hor- 
ror. He could not face the contin- 
gency. No, he would keep his secret 
to the end, and Martin Dale would 
never trouble him again. 

Thoughts such as these had drawn 
him to his old workroom. The pro- 
posal of Harold Crawford for Alice’s 
hand had plunged him deep into mem- 
ories which he would fain have blotted 
out. He had had three days in which 
to consider that proposal, and he was 
still undecided as to what he ought to 
do. Every fiber of good feeling and 
manliness within him revolted at the 
notion of marrying his daughter to the 
son of the man whom he had killed. 
Would it not be well to say to her : 
“ No, this marriage is impossible ; it 


158 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


shall never take place in my lifetime. 
I have a reason against it which I can- 
not tell to you.” He knew that it would 
be well — that it was the only honest 
thing that he could do. 

Stephen Endicott loved his daughter. 
He felt that it would wring his heart to 
see her cheek turn pale, her eyes grow 
dim with weeping, her voice lose its 
joyousness, her gait its elasticity ; and 
yet this pain would be in store for him 
if he uttered this decision. His quick 
eye had already seen the signs of Alice’s 
love for Harold ; he knew her sensitive 
nature, and, although he believed that 
she would obey her father’s command 
and give up her lover at his bidding, he 
foersaw her suffering, and shrank be- 
fore it. 

And yet — yet — was it not laid upon 
him to do this thing ? Could he pos- 
sibly let her marry Harold, knowing 
what he did ? It would be to tear the 
last shred of honor from himself, if he 
sanctioned such a marriage. 

As he came to this conclusion he 
moved a step forward and prepared, 
with a heavy sigh, to leave the room. 
At that very moment he heard a sound 
which startled him so much that his face 
turned ashy white, and his whole frame 
shivered as though he had been struck or 
stung. It was the sound of a low knock 
at the long-closed door. 

Strange to say, he recollected the 


ON EQUAL TERMS. 


159 


knock. It was rather a peculiar one, 
accompanied by a slight scratching of 
the panel — a knock which had always 
been used by one man of Dr. Endicott’s 
acquaintance, and only one. He him- 
self had taught that knock to Martin 
Dale. When the assistant had impor- 
tant reason for disturbing his master in 
the laboratory he used that knock, and 
the doctor would give him entrance. 
But many years had passed away since 
Stephen Endicott had heard it last. 

He stood motionless for a minute or 
two, trembling from head to foot. Then 
again he moved forward. Perhaps he 
had been mistaken. Perhaps he had 
only heard the tap of a loose branch, the 
rustling of an ivy leaf. Ah, no ! there 
came the sound again. Either Martin 
Dale in the flesh, or Martin Dale’s spirit, 
was knocking at the door. 

In a moment he sprang to the gas-jet 
and turned it out. The unwelcome 
passer-by — if it were indeed a man — 
must have seen the light at the window 
and guessed that the room was tenanted. 
Then he stood still and listened. There 
was blank darkness now, except for the 
glimmering square that showed the win- 
dow panes. 

No knock came to the door. But 
instead of a knock there came a voice — 
the sound of which struck dismay to 
Dr. Endicott’s heart. 

“ If you don’t let me in. Dr. Endicott, 


i6o DR. endicott’s experiment. 


I’ll batter the door down and rouse the 
house.” 

“Who are you?” said the doctor 
sternly. 

“I am Martin Dale.” 

He knew it well enough. The per- 
spiration stood upon his brow, and his 
hands were clammy and cold with fear, 
although his voice was calm. 

“ You cannot get in that way,” he 
answered, approaching the door, and 
bending his mouth to the key-hole : 
“Go round to the library window, and 
I will let you in.” 

“ Don’t keep me waiting, then,” was 
the reply, uttered with a sullen insolence 
which made Stephen Endicott’s blood 
run cold. He heard the visitor’s steps 
sounding on the graveled pathway, and 
wondered whether anyone else could 
hear. 

In two minutes he was in the library, 
which possessed a long window opening 
to the ground. He opened it with a 
trembling hand, and found himself verily 
and in truth face to face with Martin 
Dale, who stepped jauntily into the 
room, as if he had a right to be there. 
The doctor closed the window and drew 
the curtain across it, stepped across the 
room and locked the door, then turned 
up the lamp and faced his visitor. 
“What do you want with me?” he 
said. 

For a moment the two men looked at 


ON EQUAL TERMS. 


l6l 


each other in silence. They had never 
been alike, but the contrast was now 
intensified a thousand-fold. The un- 
kempt, shabby, pockmarked, disreput- 
able wanderer, with stooping shoulders 
and shambling gait, stood opposite a 
man of stately and noble presence, with 
a fine intellectual face and head, 
thoughtful eyes, and steady mouth — a 
man whose whole being seemed to ex- 
press power and endurance, and whose 
environment was marked with all the 
signs of refinement and prosperity. 
Martin Dale looked him up and down 
with an expression of insolent scorn ; 
then he glanced round the room, tossed 
his head up, and laughed aloud. 

“ What are you laughing at ? ” said 
the doctor, repressing a strong inclina- 
tion to take the fellow by the throat 
and shake him as a terrier shakes a rat. 

“ I’m laughing at the world,” said 
Martin Dale. “ Not at you, sir ; oh, 
no ! I admire you. I alwa3^s admire 
cleverness and success. And if anyone 
has fooled the world nicely, it’s been 
you. Dr. Endicott — it’s been you.” 

He rubbed his hands and shrugged 
his shoulders up to his ears in horrible 
mirth, while Stephen Endicott stood and 
looked at him — and wished him dead. 
But the doctor was a strong man, and 
would not show that he was afraid. 

“ I wonder,” he said coldly, that 
you dare to come here. You are a 


i 62 dr. endicott’s experiment. 


thief ; you stole from me before you 
left me, and I could put you in prison 
to-morrow, if I chose.” 

“ Oh, that is the tone you are going 
to take ; is it ? ” said Dale, with infinite 
unconcern. “ Then I’d advise you to 
drop it. Dr. Endicott. You and I know 
each other a trifle too well for that. I 
took only what I considered my rightful 
due, and the, proper payment for that 
little bit of work in which I assisted.” 

He saw that the doctor winced in 
spite of himself. 

I don't think the world has ever 
been acquainted with the particulars of 
that transaction, has it ? ” he went on 
sneeringly. “What would become of 
your practice, your medical reputation, 
your good name, if I told the world that 
little story ? You’ve been very clever ; 
you have gullied the world very well — 
but it lies in my hands now, I think, 
whether the world’s to be gulled any 
longer.” 

“ You go too far,” said Stephen, in 
a hoarse, choked voice. “ You forget 
with whom you have to deal. If you 
don’t hold your tongue — one or other 
of us will not leave this room alive ! ” 

His face was very pale, his eyes full of 
a dangerous gleam. He made an invol- 
untary movement with his hands, as 
though to attack his enemy at once ; 
but Martin Dale was on his guard. His 
hand was in his pocket, and with one 


ON EQUAL TERMS. 


163 


swift gesture he showed what he carried 
there. It was a revolver. 

“ Loaded ! " he said quietly. “ Oh, 
I’m not such a fool as you think me, Dr. 
Endicott. I knew it was pretty well a 
matter of life and death before I came, 
and I provided accordingly. If you lift > 
a hand to me, I’ll use this. I learned 
how to handle it in the States, and I’ve 
no scruples about it, either. I could get 
away without anyone being the wiser, 
and leave you dead on your own hearth- 
rug.” 

Dr. Endicott was quite calm by the 
time this speech was ended. He even 
smiled a little, as he sat down at his 
desk. 

“You have learned also how to 
bluster,” he said gently. “ That was 
not an accomplishment of yours in the 
old days, Martin. I don’t fancy your 
aim would be very sure ; your hand is 
not too steady, I see. Still, at close 
quarters I might have a poor chance 
against you.” 

“ Very poor, indeed ! ” said Martin, 
sneering. 

“ Therefore I think it well to provide 
against emergencies.” He removed his 
hand from a drawer into which he had 
plunged it, and suddenly placed a re- 
volver on the desk before him, straightly 
poised in Martin Dale’s direction. “ I 
keep fire-arms as well as you,” he went 
on easily. “ My revolver is always 


164 dr. endicott’s experiment. 


ready, and I have no more scruple about 
using it than you have. So you see 
that we are on equal terms, and we 
need have no more of this threatening 
nonsense. Now, tell me what you 
want.” 

Martin Dale stared at him, and then 
gradually let his eyes fall to the floor. 
“Well, you’re a cool hand,” he said 
slowly, “You were always clever. I 
always gave you credit for that. Well ” 
— with a short, uneasy laugh — “ let’s talk 
things over, doctor. There’s no need 
for violence on either side. If you’ll 
put that six-shooter of yours into the 
drawer. I’ll leave mine in my trouser 
pocket. That’s fair, isn’t it ? ” 

The doctor removed the pistol from 
the desk, but placed it on the table 
beside him, ready to his hand. There 
it is,” he said quietly. “ Let us hope I 
shall not need to use it. Now, have the 
goodness to tell me at once, and as 
quickly as you can, why you are here.” 

Martin threw himself into an easy- 
chair, and looked gloomily at the doctor. 
“ I’ve come here,” he said, in a somewhat 
sulky tone, “ for a very evident reason: 
because I want money.” 

“ Yes, so I should suppose. But why 
do you come to me ? ” 

“ You want it put into words, do you ? 
Well, because I possess a secret of yours, 
which I don’t think you wish to see in 
the newspapers. Give me something to 


ON EQUAL TERMS. 


165 


make it worth my while for me to hold 
my tongue ; that is the long and the 
short of it.” 

“ You are an insolent scoundrel,” said 
Endicott, “ and if it were not for old 
acquaintance’ sake, I would at once kick 
you out of the house. You possess no 
secret of mine which has any marketable 
value.” 

“ What ? ” said Martin Dale, with an 
indescribably malicious grin ; “ does all 
the world know how you dug up Mrs. 
Crawford’s grave on the night after the 
funeral, and got the body out of the 
coffin that you might dissect it ? That’s 
the way you got some of your knowl- 
edge ; some of the details that have 
made you famous. I’m sure of that ; but 
does the world know how you got them, 
I should like to hear ? ” 

“ The world has nothing to do with 
the way scientific men obtain knowledge. 
It must judge by results,” said Dr. Endi- 
cott coldly. “ Any knowledge I have 
obtained I used for the cure of disease. 
But you are mistaken in thinking I ob- 
tained that knowledge from an examina- 
tion of Mrs. Crawford’s body.” 

“ You lie, Stephen Endicott, and you 
know you lie. Didn’t I help you to ex- 
hume the body ? ” 

“ You helped me to make the attempt 
— which I have no desire to deny,” said 
Dr. Endicott, looking him steadily in the 
face ; “but, as you know, we were inter- 


l66 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


rupted, and the attempt was never 
resumed.” 

Martin Dale rose to his feet. “ Do you 
mean to tell me you — you gave it up ? ” 

“We were interrupted,” said Endi- 
cott, repeating his words mechanically, 
“ and I gave it up. If you had not been 
such a coward as to run away you would 
have known that.” 

He gained courage as he saw the 
man’s discomfiture. It was plain that 
Martin Dale had not been expecting 
him to receive his attack in this manner. 

“ The world is welcome,” he continued, 
in his loftiest manner, “to know that I 
did once think of making that unfortu- 
nate attempt, entirely in the interests of 
science, but when we were interrupted 
I had not the heart to begin the work 
over again, and have very much regret- 
ted that first attempt.” 

“ It would ruin your practice, if it 
were known,” said Martin sullenly. “ A 
doctor who digs up his patients’ bodies 
for purposes of dissection — faugh ! ” 

“ It would have ruined it at the time, 
no doubt,” said Dr. Endicott, with per- 
fect serenity, “ but it is far too firmly 
established now for any report of the 
kind to have an effect upon it. You are 
welcome to make the experiment, if you 
please.” 

“ I’ll take you at your word,” said the 
man, “unless you make it worth my 
while to hold my tongue. Perhaps 


THE DOCTOR LIES. 


167 


young Crawford would like the infor- 
mation.” 

Dr. Endicott could not keep himself 
from paling, and Martin Dale saw the 
change. 

“ Yes, I should say he’d give me money 
for it, if you won’t,” he said coolly. 

Endicott bit his lip. “ If you tell him 
any such rubbish my only course will 
be to deny it,” he said sharply. “ A 
frustrated attempt of that kind counts 
as nothing.” 

Ah ! but was it frustrated ? We 
might find that out ! ” 

The doctor’s features twitched for a 
moment, but he was not beaten yet. 

‘‘You’ll get nothing out of me by this 
folly. Dale, and you know it. I don’t 
mind giving you a sovereign now and 
then, if you are in difficulties, but only 
for old acquaintance’ sake. You will 
get nothing by bluster and silly threats.” 

“ Perhaps Mr. Harold Crawford will 
be more generous,” said Dale. 


CHAPTER XHI. 

THE DOCTOR LIES. 

CAR into the night the duel was pro- 
^ longed. When dawn came, both 
combatants were exhausted, but unsub- 
dued. Martin Dale had found the clew 


l68 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


to Dr. Endicott’s motives; he had 
played upon the man’s fears by repeated 
references to Harold, until he fancied 
that the game might possibly be 
altogether in his hands before long, if 
only he played his cards well enough. 
He did not understand the doctor’s 
repeated statement that Dale might tell 
Harold what he chose respecting the 
attempt upon his mother’s grave; he 
thought, in fact, that it was mere 
bravado, and that, if the point were 
urged sufficiently, the doctor would 
yield. He had not yet begun to associ- 
ate Stephen Endicott with Harry Craw- 
ford’s disappearance; no suspicion of 
the truth had dawned upon him. He 
had not known at the time that the 
dark figure which had risen up out of 
the dark night, and precipitated itself 
upon Dr. Endicott at the side of Lilian 
Crawford’s grave, was that of Harry 
Crawford himselC He had fled too 
hurriedly to see the face. And his 
knowledge of the facts was not yet 
sufficiently minute to enable him to 
connect that struggle in the churchyard 
with the squire’s subsequent disappear- 
ance. 

With Stephen, the case was different. 
He had now one fear, and one fear 
only. He dreaded lest suspicion of 
having caused Harry Crawford'’s death 
should be directed against himself. 
He believed that he could deny the 


THE DOCTOR LIES. 


169 


charge of violating the grave, if ever 
the charge was made, but he dreaded 
above all things any questioning on the 
subject of Harry’s death. He thought 
that if he held out against Martin Dale’s 
attempt to blackmail him on the first 
score, he could obviate suspicion on the 
second. 

“Well,” Martin said at length, when 
the dawn of Monday morning broke 
into the curtained room, “you say I 
may do my worst, and you’ll find 
that I shall. You’d better agree to my 
terms and let me go.” 

“Terms!” said the doctor con- 
temptuously. “And what terms do 
you want, you scoundrel?” 

“Keep a civil tongue in your head,” 
said Martin, who was growing angry. 
“These are my terms. Give me three 
hundred a year for life, paid quarterly; 
and I’ll go to America, or the ends of 
the earth, without wagging my tongue 
about any of your doings. But if you 
won’t ” 

“If I won’t, what then?” 

“Well, then,” said the man doggedly, 
“r)l get the best price I can for my 
information elsewhere.’’ 

“You may go to the devil for all I 
care,’’ said the doctor. 

And then at last Martin Dale rose. 

“I’m going down to the Rose in 
Bourneby,’’ he remarked. “You may 
hear of me there any time you want me. 


170 DR. ENDICOTT'S experiment. 


And I’ll look in again before long. 
You’ll find it to your interest to pension 
me off, doctor. I shall stick to you like 
a leech, if you don’t.” 

And the doctor could well believe it. 
But he drew a long breath of relief 
when the man was safely off the 
premises; and then dropped his head 
between his hands and burst into bitter 
tears. 

The die was cast. He could not 
allow his daughter to marry Harold 
Crawford. The truth might come to 
light any day. He was resolved against 
giving Dale the money for which he 
asked; and yet he felt that there was 
a possibility of his yielding the point. 
If, indeed, he could get Dale out of the 
country, would he not insure his own 
safety, and could he not then consent to 
his daughter’s marriage with Harold? 

But he was a man of keen mind and 
strong common sense, and these very 
characteristics urged him to be firm. 
If he once submitted to be blackmailed 
by Martin Dale, he felt that he would 
be guilty of fatal weakness. The man 
might turn on him at any moment, 
and prove, by the very fact of the doc- 
tor’s payments, the doctor’s guilt. He 
could not give way — let Martin Dale 
threaten as he chose. And he could 
not, under the circumstances, allow 
Alice to become Harold Crawford’s 
wife. 


THE DOCTOR LIES. 


171 


In the course of the morning, as Dr. 
Endicott sat quietly in his study, 
Harold Crawford was announced. The 
young man noticed, as he came in, that 
the doctor looked pale and weary, and 
his heart misgave him as to the verdict 
that he was about to hear. Harold 
himself was dressed with extreme care 
and neatness, as became a lover who 
hoped that he had come to woo, and, 
in spite of an expression of anxiety 
upon his face, looked as handsome and 
manly a young fellow as anyone could 
desire for a son-in-law. 

Dr. Endicott received him gravely, 
but not, as Harold thought, unkindly. 
He was therefore all the more taken 
aback when the doctor made known to 
him the fact that he refused, absolutely 
and decisively, his proposal for Alice’s 
hand. Harold, who had been seated, 
sprang out of his chair, white with 
anguish, and, at first, positively dumb 
with dismay. 

“But, Dr. Endicott,” he stammered 
out at last, “she loves me.” 

“A girl’s fancy, which will pass. 
Yours also will pass, Harold. I am 
sorry to pain you, but the more I reflect 
on the matter, the more I see that it is 
impossible for me to sanction any en- 
gagement.” 

“If we love each other, sir,” said 
Harold, with spirit, “we shall be obliged 
to do without your sanction.” 


172 DR. ENDICOTT'S EXPERIMENT. 


“Do you defy my authority?’ 

“Not when it is rightly and wisely 
exercised; but surely, sir, in this case 
you will change your decision.” 

“Never!” 

“But you will tell me your reasons? 
At least let me hear them,” cried 
Harold passionately, ‘ ‘that I may com- 
bat them and put your objections to 
flight. Have you heard anything 
against me?” 

“No, Harold, nothing.” The doc- 
tor’s voice was almost tender in its note 
of regret. 

“You know of my circumstances — 
are they not such as to warrant me in 
asking a woman to be my wife?” 

“Perfectly.” 

“Then why, sir, why ” 

The doctor looked at him compas- 
sionately. “You had better accept 
my decision without questioning it, 
Harold,’’ he said. “I am truly sorry, 
but I cannot do otherwise.’’ 

“Only tell me why.’’ 

“For one reason,’’ said Stephen 
Endicott slowly, “you will place me in 
the awkward position of seeming to have 
thrown my daughter in your way. If I 
give her to you, I shall appear the most 
dishonorable of men. I will not submit 
to be placed in that position.’’ 

Harold’s eyes suddenly blazed. 

“Do you mean,’’ he asked sternly, 
“that you will separate Alice and myself 


THE DOCTOR LIES. 


173 


for the sake of your own reputation? 
That would be cruel, and — permit me to 
say so — also absurd." 

“There is another reason," said 
Stephen, frowning darkly, “but it is 
one which I do not wish to give." 

“You must give it me. I refuse to 
be bound by your wishes unless I am 
convinced — and I shall never be con- 
vinced — that it is my duty to give her 
up." 

He began impetuously, but ended 
with a quiver of the voice that went to 
Endicott’s heart. The man moved un- 
easily in his chair, sighed, and looked 
through the window — at Lilian’s grave. 

“My dear Harold," he said at length, 
in an unusually gentle tone, “I have the 
greatest reluctance to pain you. I 
would to God that you had never seen 
my daughter — never fallen in love with 
her. If I had thought that possible, I 
should have left Fenby long ago. But 
I was selfish enough to think only of my 
own convenience, and Alice has hither- 
to seemed to me such a child that I never 
dreamed of taking steps to remove her 
out of harm’s way. I think you know 
me well enough to believe that I am 
sincere in saying all this to you?” 

“Yes, of course; I know that you 
mean it, sir, but I don’t see why — I 
can’t see why you should not give her to 
me. I swear I would make her life 
happy.’’ 


174 dr. endicott’s experiment. 


“I believe you would — as far as it lay 
in your power. Ask me no more, 
Harold; I shall only add to your un- 
happiness, if I go on.” 

‘‘I must know why you refuse,” the 
young man persisted. He was hag- 
gardly pale; he began to see that Dr. 
Endicott’s decision was final, and that 
no pleadings would avail to move 
him. 

“I would do anything in my power — 
that I thought right' — to add to your 
happiness,” said the doctor, wdth one 
hand pressed on his brow so as to shade 
his downcast eyes from Harold’s too 
penetrating gaze. ‘‘I have never for- 
gotten that your father was my friend, 
and that he once begged me to be a 
friend to you in case you wanted friend- 
ship. Harold, if there were anything 
else in the world that you wanted which 
I could give I would give it, but not my 
daughter.” 

“Why?” 

“Because, my dear lad, you bear in 
your constitution the seeds of that 
deadly disease of which your mother 
died; and even if you, by good fortune, 
escape it, you will leave it as a legacy 
to your. children after you. Disease, or 
madness, or early death — it is difficult 
to say which might not be their fate. 
It is your plain duty not to marry at all 
— to let your race die out; and I should 
be false to all my scientific beliefs if for 


THE DOCTOR LIES. 


175 


one moment I tolerated the idea of your 
marrying my daughter.” 

He spoke with great emphasis, great 
intensity, and wiped the drops of per- 
spiration from his brow when he had 
done speaking. To Harold it seemed 
as if this emotion proceeded from his 
great sorrow for the statement he had 
been called upon to make, and sympathy 
for the young man in such a trying 
moment. But there was something 
more than sorrow or sympathy in the 
doctor’s mind. There was a depth of 
bitter shame and remorse which stopped 
short only of repentance and amend- 
ment. He hated himself for what he 
was doing, but could not resolve to 
abase himself and tell the truth. 

Harold staggered, as if under the 
weight of a crushing blow, and uttered 
a cry like that of a wounded animal — so 
expressive of agony that Dr. Endicott 
turned pale when he heard it. He rose 
from his chair. 

“Harold, my dear fellow, I cannot 
tell you how grieved I am. If I could 
have spared you I would — but I could 
not — I could not. For Alice’s sake!” 

Then he stopped short: the ruin he 
had caused, the downfall of the young 
man’s hopes, the sorrow that he was 
bringing to his daughter’s heart, all 
pressed upon him and suddenly checked 
his tongue. But he strengthened him- 
self in the obstinacy of his resolve. 


176 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


After all, what did it matter? He must 
have a weapon with which to fight these 
headstrong young people, and he used 
the readiest to his hand — his own scien- 
tific knowledge. No harm, he said 
to himself, would be done. Young men 
were not usually disposed to deny them- 
selves the luxury of marriage because 
of any hereditary predisposition to dis- 
ease. In a few months Harold would 
marry some other girl, and deride the 
doctor’s warning; and Alice would be 
safe. 

“Is it — is it true?’’ the young man 
gasped. 

“Only too true,’’ said Stephen Endi- 
cott. 

Harold sat down, leaned his elbows 
on the table, and covered his face with 
his hands for a few moments in absolute 
silence. He breathed heavily, but 
showed no other sign of emotion. Dr. 
Endicott regarded him with a curious 
mixture of sorrow and respect. Silence, 
when a man was deeply wounded, struck 
him as a thing to be admired. He had 
been silent himself so long! 

The young man lifted up his face at 
last. It was very pale, and the features 
were tense and rigid with emotion, but 
his voice was perfectly composed. 

“I thank you, Dr. Endicott,’’ he 
said. “Now I understand — and I 
yield. It would be wrong, as you say, 
for me to marry; and I cannot — could 


THE DOCTOR LIES. 


177 


not — expect you to give Alice to me. 
I withdraw my — my proposal.” 

Dr. Endicott listened and bowed his 
head. “I expected you to say no less,” 
he said quietly. “You are too generous 
to do anything else.” 

“You will explain it to her, will you 
not?” poor Harold entreated. “I can- 
not bear to see her again — I think it 
would be better for me to go away." 

“Yes, perhaps it would," said the 
doctor. “Travel for a while, and you 
will forget.” 

“I shall never forget. Thank you, 
sir, for all your kindness. I — I under- 
stand now,” said the lad, almost chok- 
ing in his effort after self-control. “I 
see that it is impossible. I’ll go away; 
you shall not be troubled with me again. 
Tell Alice I will never forget her, but 
that she must not think of me.” And 
then he turned away, after wringing Dr. 
Endicott’s hand with more energy than 
he knew. 

“Poor boy!” the doctor sighed, as 
he looked after him. “I would will- 
ingly have made his life a happy one. 
But I will not let him marry Alice. 
He shall be saved from that, at any 
rate.” 

He shut himself up in the study again, 
and had his lunch brought to him there. 
He could not bear — all at once — to 
encounter his daughter’s pleading eyes. 
He had not dared to speak to her of 


178 DR. ENDICOTt’s experiment. 


Harold until the decision against him 
had been made irrevocable. He had 
felt that it was possible for her — and for 
her alone — to make him waver in what 
he had resolved to do. 

But toward evening Alice crept into 
his study and knelt down beside him, 
leaning her fair head on his shoulder, 
and he knew what sh6 had come to ask. 
But at first he did not speak. 

“Well, dear?” he said, at length. 

“Father — Harold has been here.” 

“Yes, my darling.” 

“I thought he would come to me — 
afterward.” 

There was a moment’s pause, before 
Dr. Endicott said, almost harshly: 

“I sent him away. He will not come 
again.” 

“Father!” 

There was a world of reproach in the 
utterance of his name. The doctor 
shivered slightly, and put her clinging 
hand away from him. 

“You are not going to be a disobedi- 
ent daughter, I trust, Alice? You will 
obey me?” 

“Yes — oh, yes, father; but — but I 
love Harold — too.” 

“My child, he — he is not worthy of 
your love.” 

This was what he had resolved to say 
to her. He could sever these two 
young, pure hearts only by guile. 

“I do not mean that there is any- 


THE DOCTOR LIES. 


179 


thing very — morally wrong. But he 
is not in a fit state of health and brain 
to marry. There are disease and mad- 
ness in his family, Alice. It would 
be very wrong if I gave you to him, 
and I absolutely refuse to do it. My 
dear, you must accept my judgment. 

“But father — poor Harold!” 

“Harold knows my decision, and 
accepts it. He owns that I am right, 
and bade me say farewell to you from 
him. My child must be brave. It 
would not be right for you to marry 
him ; say that to yourself over and over 
again, and it will strengthen you. My 
darling, you will try to be brave?” 

She was crying quietly, but there was 
no resentment in her tone as she spoke. 

“Father, must it be so? Is there no 
way?” 

“None, Alice. I would sooner see 
you in your grave than married to 
Harold Crawford.” 

And from the decision of his tone 
Alice knew, as Harold also knew, that 
appeal was impossible. She said no 
more; she clung closer to her father, and 
wept upon his shoulder ; but her heart 
was filled with a great yearning of ten- 
derness for the lover who had left her, 
at the dictates of duty, without even a 
look, a kiss, a last good-by. 


i8o DR. endicott’s experiment. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

A STRANGER IN THE LAND. 

‘ VOU must g oaway, my dear boy,” 
* said the vicar tenderly. 

Harold sat in the vicarage study, his 
head drooping, his hands clasping one 
knee. There was a look of despond- 
ency upon his face which Mr. Wykeham 
did not like to see. 

‘T may go — by and by,” said the 
young man drearily. “But it does not 
seem much use, does it? There is no 
place I care to go to, now.” 

“But that will pass, I trust.” 

‘ ‘Why should it pass ? ’ ’ Harold asked, 
almost angrily. ‘‘Do you think I shall 
forget — forget the woman I love? 
Forget that I am doomed to be a lonely, 
childless man all the days of my life? 
Forget that the old house will have to 
pass into the hands of strangers, be- 
cause I shall have no son to bear my 
name? These are things that are not 
so easy to forget. They are enough 
to last me all my life, I fancy.” 

‘‘It is a hard sentence, I know,” said 
the vicar seriously. ‘‘But I should 
not take it as an irrevocable one. Con- 
sult other doctors. Endicott was always 
a faddist on certain matters of health 
and disease. You must not go exactly 
by what he says.” 


A STRANGER IN THE LAND. l8l 


“He will never think otherwise,” 
said Harold. “He will never give me 
his daughter. That shows his opinion, 
does it not? I have no need to consult 
other doctors; he would give me Alice, 
if he had any hope for me.” 

“I cannot understand it,” said Mr. 
Wykeham, in a meditative tone. “I 
should have thought that the matter 
would have been mentioned earlier, if 
Endicott had come to the conclusion 
before your poor mother died. I never 
heard a hint of any such thing before. 
It is inexplicable. ” 

“Why inexplicable? It seems to me 
easy enough to understand.” 

“He ought to have told you before. 
I should like, if you do not object, 
Harold, to have a word with him upon 
the subject. I am not your legal 
guardian, you know, but I have taken 
as much interest in you, I think, as 

though I were ” 

“Far more,” said Harold, looking 
up with eyes that suddenly grew moist. 
“Far more than Stephen Endicott ever 
did, although he called himself my 
father’s friend.” 

The vicar remained silent and medi- 
tative for some time after the young man 
had quitted him, and when he rose, it 
was with an air of resolution which was 
not often seen upon his placid face. 
He took his hat and stick, and made his 
way, without further hesitation, to the 


i 82 dr. endicott’s experiment. 


Manor House, where he was shown at 
once into the library. Dr. Endicott 
rose from his chair to receive him, and 
threw a more than customary friendli- 
ness into his greeting. 

“I half expected you,” he said, with 
a little smile. “That was why you 
were shown in here at once. I thought 
the poor lad would fly to you in his 
trouble." 

The vicar was half disarmed. ‘T am 
very sorry to hear what you have been 
saying to poor Hal," he said, as he took 
a chair. 

“You could not be more sorry than I 
was to say it," the doctor rejoined ; and 
there was a look of distress upon his 
face which struck the vicar as un- 
doubtedly genuine. “It gave me great 
pain, I can assure you." 

“That may well be, Endicott," said 
Mr. Wykeham, assuming his judicial air. 
“And you are no doubt right to stick 
to your principles and refuse to give 
Alice to a man of unsound constitution 
— if you are sure that it is so." 

“Should I have inflicted so much 
upon him, and upon my daughter, if it 
were not so?’" 

“Surely you’ll grant the possibility of 
a mistake." 

“Not in this case," said the doctor 
coldly. “Permit me, Wykeham: 
science does not make mistakes." 

“I should have thought it made a 


A STRANGER IN THE LAND. 183 


good many,” answered the vicar. 
“How can you be sure?” 

“If you knew anything of diagnosis, 
and had understood the late Mrs. Craw- 
ford’s disease as well as I did,’’ said Dr. 
Endicott, “you would understand that 
there is no doubt as to Harold’s predis- 
position to the complaint from which 
she died. Of course it may never 
develop — but again, it may, and I am 
resolved against exposing my daughter 
to the risk of witnessing such suffering, 
and my possible grandchildren to the 
risk of inheriting it. I have made this 
disease my specialty, as you know, and 
I have come to dread its inroads un- 
speakably. Only a professional man 
like myself can estimate the suffering 
that it causes.” 

“Well, you may be right in your de- 
cision as regards Alice’s destiny,” said 
the vicar, a little uneasily, “but it is 
not only of Alice that I want to speak. 
You are Harold’s guardian. Do you 
think you have treated Harold rightly?” 

“I am Harold’s guardian — and your 
parishioner, I suppose,” said the 
doctor, with some stiffness; “but I am 
not aware . that my guardianship of 
Harold is one of those spiritual matters 
in which a clergyman has a right to 
intervene.” 

“Oh, if you are going to take it in 
that way, I can but depart,” said the 
vicar, with a touch of resentment. 


184 DR. ENDICOTT'S experiment. 


which speedily lost itself, however, in 
gentler remonstrance. “Come, Endi- 
cott, we have known each other for a 
good number of years. You should 
not be so ready to take offense. We 
are both interested in that poor lad — 
and his father was one of your oldest 
friends.” 

Dr. Endicott moved in his chair with 
some impatience, as it seemed to the 
vicar; but he answered mildly: 

“You are quite right, Wykeham, and 
I beg your pardon. I have been upset 
about this affair, and I suppose that 
my temper is affected. You must not 
think too hardly of me for a touch of 
irritability.” 

“Say no more, say no more, my dear 
fellow,” said the vicar, with real feel- 
ing, and he put out his hand tentatively 
as if to grasp that of the doctor. But 
Endicott did not seem to see it, and he 
drew it back again. “I quite under- 
stand that you have been placed in a 
very painful position. But — it is pain- 
ful for Harold also.” 

“Of course. Naturally that made 
part of the pain for me,” said Dr. En- 
dicott, in a strange, strained voice 
which caused Mr. Wykeham to look at 
him with sympathy. “But what do you 
mean by saying that I have not treated 
him rightly in this matter?” 

“Well,” said the vicar deliberately, 
“I think that, if you had come to the 


A STRANGER IN THE LAND. 185 


conclusion some time ago, you ought to 
have told him before, and not sprung it 
upon him in the very crisis of his life.” 

“If I came to this conclusion some 
time ago?” exclaimed the doctor. “Of 
course I came to that conclusion long 
ago — ever since his mother’s death.” 

“Then you ought to have spoken 
before,” said Mr. Wykeham, rather 
severely. 

There was a little pause. Dr. Endi- 
cott sat with his eyes fixed upon his 
desk, and his face contracted as if from 
pain. The vicar looked at him keenly. 

“I was reluctant to give him pain 
sooner than necessary,” said the doctor 
at last, in a low tone. 

“But you have given him far greater 
pain in the end,” said the vicar, rather 
hotly. “Surely it would have been 
better to talk to him quietly and seri- 
ously before he went to college, or at 
least before he went abroad — not to 
wait until he had fallen in love with 
your own daughter ! Really, Endicott, 
it does seem to me that you have mis- 
managed the matter, and have arranged 
it so as to give him as much pain as pos- 
sible. I cannot help saying so, and if I 
offend you I cannot help it. Why, you 
never mentioned the thing even to me ! ” 

“What was the good of talking over 
unpleasant details?” said Dr. Endicott, 
with a frown. “I knew it, of course — 
every doctor would have known it — but 


l86 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


vve don’t go about the world telling 
people of our patients’ cases. I meant 
to speak to Harold when he came home 
this time — I had no idea that he meant 
to make a fool of himself over Alice at 
his age — why, he is a mere boy still!” 

“Nay, not such a boy. But a good 
deal of this pain and unpleasantness 
might have been avoided, Endicott. 
I’m sure of that. And I can’t help tell- 
ing you so. I could not rest until I had 
freed my mind.” 

‘‘So it seems,” said the doctor, with 
rather sarcastic emphasis. ‘‘But there 
is very little use in weeping over spilt 
milk, Wykeham. I am sorry that things 
have turned out in this way, but it can’t 
be helped.” 

‘‘And you hold out no hope for the 
young people?” 

‘‘Certainly not. I would sooner see 
Alice dead and buried than Harold 
Crawford’s wife.” 

‘‘You speak strongly, Endicott. I 
am not at all sure that you are right.” 

‘‘Can 1 help that?” said the doctor 
sharply. Then, more quietly: ‘‘I beg 
your pardon, Wykeham. I can’t speak 
of the matter with perfect calm. Per- 
haps we had better not discuss it.” 

‘‘Perhaps not,” said the vicar, in a 
saddened tone. ‘‘I am extremely sorry 
for Harold — and for Alice, too, that is 
all. I hope — if you will allow me to 
ask — that Alice does not feel it much?” 


A STRANGER IN THE LAND. 187 


“A silly girl’s fancy. She will get 
over it. Don’t encourage her in talking 
about it, please. She will no doubt go 
to your wife for sympathy, as Harold 
has gone to you. Say a word to Mrs. 
Wykeham on the subject for me.” 

The vicar nodded, and rose to go. 
He was not satisfied with the result of 
his conversation with Dr. Endicott, and 
yet he could not put his dissatisfaction 
into words. The more he thought of 
the matter, the more he thought it 
extraordinary that the objection to 
Harold on the score of health should 
have been brought forward at this junc- 
ture. He could not help a suspicion 
that there was some other reason for his 
dismissal, and that there was less cause 
for Harold’s despondency than he 
imagined. But what it was that roused 
this suspicion in him he could not say. 
Nothing that Dr. Endicott actually said 
was to blame — yet something — some- 
thing — the vicar could not think what — 
something in his voice, or manner, or 
expression, had given rise to this sus- 
picion on the vicar’s part, and it made 
him extremely uncomfortable. 

He would have liked to see Alice, 
but was reluctant to ask for her after 
what her father had said. He took his 
leave, therefore, and walked away, with 
signs of unusual care and anxiety upon 
his brow. 

He went down the lane on his way 


l88 DR. ENDICOTT^S EXPERIMENT. 


to the village, and encountered Harold 
near the churchyard gate. 

“Was it any good?” the young man 
asked wistfully. 

“I’m afraid not, Harold, my boy. 
I’m afraid not.” 

“I wonder if it would make any 
difference if I went to some big London 
doctor, and asked him.” 

“No difference to Endicott, I’m 
afraid, Harold. You had better try to 
put the idea out of your head, and go 
away for a bit.” 

“Perhaps I had. But I don’t want 
to go yet,” said Hal, hanging his head 
sorrowfully. “I want to see if there is 
anything else to be done — about my 
poor father’s death ” 

The vicar shook his head. “My 
poor boy, both your aims are vain ones, 
I am afraid. Best to forget the past.” 

“I am to forget the past, and give 
up all hope for the future, am I?” said 
Harold bitterly. “It does not seem 
to me that life is worth living, at this 
rate.” 

The vicar was about to utter a 
remonstrance, when his attention was 
diverted from the subject in hand. A 
man had come slouching up the lane, 
and Mr. Wykeham’s eyes had fallen on 
his face, with the result that he forgot 
what he had been going to say. 

“Why,” he said suddenly, “surely I 
know that face!” 


A STRANGER IN THE LAND. 189 


Harold looked up, and recognized the 
man whose enigmatical remarks had 
excited his curiosity a few days before. 

“Who is it?” he said quickly. 

The man seemed to wish to escape 
remark. He lowered his head, turned 
his face, and seemed inclined to slink 
into the hedge when the vicar turned 
and addressed him. 

“Have I not seen you before in the 
neighborhood?” he asked. 

“You may have done; I’m sure I 
can’t tell,” was the answer in a semi- 
sullen, semi-insolent tone. 

“Have the goodness to stop for a 
moment,” said the vicar, who was 
accustomed to exercise a sort of parental 
authority over residents and visitors 
alike in the village of Fenby. “You 
are not a native of this village, are 
you?” 

‘No,” the man answered; “I am 
not.” 

“When were you here before?” 

“Have you any reason for asking 
me these questions?” said the stranger, 
lifting his head, with a sudden fierce- 
ness in his sunken, disagreeable-look- 
ing eyes. “I am not accustomed to be 
questioned in this way.” 

Here Harold interposed, in the be- 
nevolent hope of throwing oil upon the 
troubled waters. “You mistake, my 
good man,” he said. “The vicar does 
not ask questions out of idle curiosity. 


IQO DR. ENDICOTT S EXPERIMENT. 


but only in order to know whether he 
can help you or not.” 

‘‘I have not asked for help,” the man 
replied, with an unpleasant laugh. 
‘‘And as far as I understand, I am 
more likely to be able to help Mr. 
Harold Crawford than the vicar to help 
me.” 

“You said something of this kind 
before,” said Harold impulsively. 
“What do you mean?” 

“That’s my secret, sir. If ever you 
want to possess yourself of it, you will 
have to pay my price — that’s all.” 

“And what is your price?” 

“That I haven’t decided. I may 
perhaps let you know when I want to 
sell it.’’ 

And, with a laugh, the man slouched 
off, making his way up the lane to the 
gate which led to the house of Dr. 
Endicott. 

“What an insolent fellow!” cried 
the vicar. 

“He is going to the doctor’s,” Harold 
murmured thoughtfully. “I wish I 
knew his name.” 

“Wait a moment,” said Mr. Wyke- 
ham briskly. “I mentioned this man 
to you before, and I know where I saw 
him now. He was staying with the 
doctor as his assistant just about the 
time of your mother’s death. I suppose 
you won’t remember Jane Sparks, who 
was housemaid at the Manor House 


A STRANGER IN THE LAND. I9I 


about that time? She married Perkins, 
at the lodge. It is quite possible that 
she may remember his name, which I 
have forgotten.” 

“Let us go and ask her at once. I 
am interested in tha.t man. He seems 
to know something about my father 
which we do not, sir. I wish we could 
bring him to book.” 

“The only way to do that might be 
to have him arrested as a vagrant, ’ ’ said 
Mr. Wykeham dryly. ‘‘But here we 
are at Mrs. Perkins’. Good evening, 
Jane; how are you to-night?” 

Jane Perkins was a comely, rosy- 
cheeked, black-eyed dame, who had 
grown buxom since the days when she 
was housemaid at Dr. Endicott’s. She 
smiled broadly and courtesied low as 
the gentlemen approached, and invited 
them with great empressement into her 
best parlor, which was very close and 
stuffy, and filled with shining mahogany 
furniture. 

‘‘We have come to ask you a ques- 
tion, Mrs. Perkins,” said the vicar 
pleasantly; ‘‘and I am sure that you 
will answer it to the best of your 
ability.” 

Mrs. Perkins courtesied still, with her 
hands folded in her apron, and expressed 
her desire to do her best. 

‘‘You were at the Manor House, as 
housemaid, before you married?” 

‘‘Yes, sir, I was.” 


192 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


“You were there at the time of a very- 
sad occurrence at the Hall, when Mrs. 
Crawford died?” 

“Yes, sir, I was,” said Mrs. Perkins, 
composing her face into an expression 
of decent solemnity. 

“Do you remember anyone staying at 
Dr. Endicott’s about that time?” 

“No, sir, I don’t. At least — wait a 
moment. Do you mean regular visitors, 
sir, or anybody at all? For there was 
a young man that used to come and go 
every now and then ; and he, as I re- 
member, was there just at that time. 
There on the day of the late Mrs. Craw- 
ford’s funeral, I think he was.” 

“That may be the man I mean,” said 
the vicar quickly. “Who was he?” 

“Well, sir, he was a sort of assistant 
to the doctor, I believe. Not a gentle- 
man, you know.” 

“Not a handsome man, either, was 
he?” said the vicar, smiling. 

“The ugliest brute I ever set eyes 
on,” exclaimed Mrs. Perkins energeti- 
cally, “begging your pardon, sir, for 
saying so. Cross-eyed, and pale, and 
pockmarked ; a regular bad-looking sort 
of chap, that you wouldn’t trust with a 
brass farthing, not further than you 
could see. He’d been the doctor’s 
errand-boy, once upon a time, so I’ve 
heard say, and had risen to be a sort of 
assistant in his workshop, or whatever 
it was. It used to make my blood run 


MARTIN dale’s STORY. 


193 


cold whenever he touched little Miss 
Alice, for people used to say as he 
helped the doctor — I dare say it was 
all rubbish, you know, sir — to cut up 
dead bodies and that sort of thing. 
Which I could easily believe of Martin 
Dale, but never of a fine man like the 
doctor,” 

“Martin Dale! Yes, that was the 
name I once heard,” said Mr. Wyke- 
ham, with a flash of returning memory. 
“Harold, that was the very man. 
Why, what’s the matter, man?” 

For Harold had turned white. There 
was a ghoul-like suggestiveness in Mrs. 
Perkins’ reference to the dissecting room 
which had suddenly made him feel faint 
and sick — he did not quite know why. 


CHAPTER XV. 


MARTIN DALE S STORY. 


COR the next few days it seemed as 
^ though Martin Dale had disappeared 
from Fenby altogether. The vicar 
and Harold both looked for him, and 
made inquiries as to his whereabouts, 
but nothing could be seen or heard of 
him. It must be allowed that Harold’s 
inquiries were somewhat languid. He 
was a little too much absorbed by# his 
own affairs to be energetic in anything 


194 dr. endicott's experiment. 


else just then. It was impossible for 
him to help brooding over the downfall 
of his hopes, the doom which seemed to 
hang over him. He thought once or 
twice of carrying out the vicar’s sug- 
gestion, and of going to London to con- 
sult another physician as to his health 
and the chances of his having inherited 
his mother’s disease ; but the reflection 
diat another medical opinion would have 
no effect upon Dr. Endicott’s decision 
deterred him. By and by, he thought, 
he would go; but at present — where 
was the use? 

Again the vicar urged him to go 
abroad. But he had still two reasons 
for remaining in England — and at 
Fenby. He was not quite satisfied that 
all had been done that ought to be 
done with respect to his father’s dis- 
appearance — that was the first thing. 
Secondly, he was anxious about Alice, 
who was reported to be ill. She did 
not come to church ; she was not seen 
about the lanes, or the village, or the 
churchyard — her favorite haunts; and 
the servants shook their heads mysteri- 
ously when asked after her welfare. 
Even Mrs. Wykeham, warned by her 
husband to say as little as possible, 
looked uncomfortable when Harold 
mentioned her, and could only reply 
that she was sure Alice would receive 
evea-y possible care and attention from 
her father- 


MARTIN dale’s STORY. 


195 


And if care and attention could have 
done Alice good, she would speedily 
have recovered from her indisposition, 
such as it was. Stephen Endicott lav- 
ished more tenderness upon his daughter 
at this time than he had ever shown 
before ; he spent as much of his leisure 
with her as was possible; he brought 
her beautiful presents from London; 
he tempted her appetite with the rarest 
fruit, the choicest delicacies; he did 
everything, in short, but give her the 
desire of her heart, w'hich alone would 
have satisfied her and made her well. 

Alice did her best to respond. She 
was not rebellious, not ungrateful. 
But she had been robbed of the sweetest 
hope that ever comes to a woman’s 
heart, and she was as one who had 
received a deadly hurt. It was no use 
to pretend that she did not care. She 
did care; every fiber of her being cried 
out that she cared, and in the struggle 
for fortitude and submission, her physi- 
cal strength ebbed away, as the blood 
ebbs from an open wound. 

“It was necessary, my child — you 
cannot know how necessary it was,’’ 
her father pleaded with her one even- 
ing, at the twilight hour. She was 
lying on a sofa, and he had come to 
her side and knelt down beside her, 
and put his arms about her as he tried 
to soften the harshness of his decree to 
her ears. “If I could have prevented 


196 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


it, I would — you know I would; but I 
cannot help it.” 

“Father, dear, I know you would. 
Only sometimes I feel ” 

“Well, my darling.” 

“As if you had separated me from 
Harold only because you were afraid of 
my having to suffer pain for his sake by 
and by — supposing that he were ill, you 
know, as you think he may be ; and I 
wanted to tell you that I would rather 
have that kind of suffering than this. 
Because — if he were ill, you know — 
would it make things any better that I 
could not go to him and nurse him and 
comfort him? I would rather do that 
and — bear the suffering •” ‘ 

“I know, I know, my dearest child. 
It is like you to say so. But I am act- 
ing as I think right — not only for you, 
but for the race. It is hard sometimes 
to bear ; but we must sacrifice our indi- 
vidual lives when necessary for the good 
of society, for the good of the. human 
race ; and you are called on to do this. 
Because, if you had children, Alice, 
they also might inherit and transmit 
this terrible disease — do you not see?” 

“Yes, I see,” she answered drearily, 
“and I suppose you are right, but it is 
so hard to bear.” She hid her face 
upon his arm with a burst of silent tears, 
and the doctor pressed her to him 
closely, feeling a terrible pang of re- 
morse for the wrong that he was doing 


MARTIN DALE S STORY. I97 


and had done. But what other path, 
he said to himself, could he take? 

“Will you promise me something, 
father?” Alice asked at length, raising 
her sweet, tear-stained face from his 
encircling arm. 

“If I can, my darling.” 

“If Harold should ever be taken ill 
with that dreadful complaint, will you 
let me go to him then and nurse him?” 

“My dear Alice, it may be in the 
system, and never develop itself for the 
next twenty years — or more. I know 
of a man who developed an hereditary 
disease after he was seventy years of 
age.” 

“That does not matter. Promise 
me, dear father, that you will put no 
obstacle in the way, if it is possible in 
other respects.” 

“Well, if it is possible in other 
respects, and you still wish it,” said 
Dr. Endicott reluctantly, “I promise 
you that I will not object.” 

He thought the promise a foolish and 
futile one, but if it tranquilized the 
girl’s mind he would not refuse to give it. 

She certainly seemed quieter and 
more contented after this. Only she 
could not eat nor sleep. She had lost 
interest in life ; and every day she grew 
thinner and paler and weaker, as if her 
vitality grew less and less and would 
finally fail her altogether. Stephen 
Endicott’s heart was wrung by a terrible 


198 DR. ENDICOTT’s 'EXPERIMENT. 


fear. If the reason which he gave for 
separating the lovers had been the real 
reason, he would have surrendered un- 
conditionally. But unfortunately there 
was another reason, of a more deadly 
kind. He could not let Alice marry 
the son of Harry and Lilian Crawford 
without confessing the truth. 

And if he confessed the truth, the 
probability was that Harold would not 
look at her again. What use then to 
ruin himself by confession, if that con- 
fession would not bring about the child’s 
happiness? Yet how could he bear to 
see his child die before his eyes, know- 
ing, too, how cruel he must appear to 
her. It was an impasse^ out of which 
he could not see his way. 

Meanwhile, Harold hung about his 
own garden and grounds almost as much 
dejected and out of sorts as Alice herself. 
But he was destined to receive an im- 
petus, a stimulus to action, of which 
Alice would be the last to dream. 

He was leaning over a fence. and look- 
ing at the blue hills on the distant hori- 
zon, when he heard a step beside him. 
Looking up, he saw the shabby stranger 
for whom he had been searching during 
the past few days, in the desultory way 
for which he made excuse to himself by 
the thought of his own trouble ; and, 
although he rather prided himself on his 
self-possession as a general thing, he 
could not help starting at this sudden 


MARTIN dale's STORY. 199 


appearance. The man took instant ad- 
vantage of the momentary pause to say: 

“I’ve heard that you wanted me, Mr. 
Crawford. I don’t know what for, but 
here I am, and you can make the best of 
me.’’ 

“Your name is Martin Dale, I think?’’ 
said Harold, retaliating as best he could. 

“Yes, it is,” said the man, with a 
furtive glance at him, and something of 
a scowl, “thqugh how you came to know 
it ” 

“How I came to know it is nothing to 
the point,” said Harold coolly. “I do 
know it, and that is enough. You wish 
to speak to me, do you? Then you had 
better come up to the house.” 

The man hesitated and looked keenly 
at the young squire. “Honor bright!” 
he said, with a somewhat awkward laugh. 
“You don’t mean to detain me against 
my will? I’ll tell you, to begin with, I 
won’t have anything to do with the par- 
son or the doctor, and if you face me 
with them I shall be dumb. I’ll deal 
with you, if with anyone, and with no 
one else.” 

“All right,” said Harold impatiently. 
“I would rather see you alone. There’s 
neither doctor, nor parson, nor police- 
man concealed about my premises. 
You are free to come and go as you 
please. No one will hinder you.” 

“You promise that,” the stranger 
said, looking at him suspiciously. 


200 DR. ENDICOTT’s EXPERIMENT. 


“You give me your word — your word 
of honor — that, when we have had our 
conversation, you’ll let me go as I 
came?” 

It was Hal’s turn to hesitate. The 
insistence with which Martin Dale urged 
his request showed that he attached great 
importance to it. This was in itself a 
matter to excite suspicion. 

“You needn’t think I’m guilty of a 
murder, or anything of th^t kind,” said 
Dale, with a sneering laugh, “nor that 
I want to run away from the place. I’ll 
promise, in my turn, to go back to my 
lodgings in the village and stay there 
for a week. That’s fair, isn’t it? Only 
I want you to promise me, as I said be- 
fore, that you’ll let me go to-day as I 
came.” 

Harold shrugged his shoulders a trifle 
contemptuously. “As you please. I 
don’t suppose that I shall have the 
slightest desire to detain you. Are you 
coming up to the house or not?” 

“Oh, yes, I’m coming,” said the 
man. “Lead on, young gentleman. 
It’s your turn to lead now. But per- 
haps I can tell you a thing or two that 
even you haven’t been aware of till 
now.” 

Harold hardly noticed the words. 
He strode back to the house, and led 
the way, without speaking, to the library. 
Here he motioned the visitor to a seat ; 
but he himself did not sit down. He 


MARTIN dale’s STORY. 


201 


leaned against the mantelpiece, and oc- 
casionally took a turn or two up and 
down the hearthrug; but it did not seem 
to him possible to settle down and look 
magisterial in an armchair, as an older 
man would probably have done. Martin 
Dale, sitting at a respectful distance 
from him, smiled to himself at the young 
proprietor’s want of self-command. 

“Well,” said Harold at last, rather 
sharply, “what is it you wish to say?” 

“I? It was not I who was looking 
for you, sir, but you who were looking 
for me, if you remember. I was under 
the impression that you had a question 
to ask me,” Martin answered, in oily 
tones. 

“Well, I have a question,” said 
Harold, facing him. “You led me to 
think the other day that you knew some- 
thing of my father’s disappearance. 
What do you know?” 

'‘That is not a question that’s easily 
answered. I know something that only 
one person besides myself knows, and 
which I have often thought, Mr. Harold, 
that you ought to know. But I don’t 
part with valuable information for 
nothing.” 

“What do you want? Five pounds?” 
said Harold bluntly. 

‘ ‘Say five times as much to begin with, 
sir, and we’ll see how much the rest is 
worth to you.” 

Harold hesitated. But he was young. 


202 DR. ENDICOTT's EXPERLMENT. 


impatient, and he had plenty of money. 
He went to his desk, and wrote a check 
for twenty-five pounds. Blit he did not 
hand it at once to Martin Dale, whose 
covetous eyes rested on it with a sort of 
affectionate satisfaction. He fluttered 
it lightly between his fingers, letting 
the man read the amount and the sig- 
nature. 

“Now,” he said, “you see I am ready 
to pay your price for your information, 
if it is really of any value. But you 
must give me some idea of its value 
first. When I am convinced that it is 
worth having, I will give you the check.” 

“Confound your caution!” muttered 
Dale to himself. But he looked at 
Harold’s firm lips and clear eyes, and 
did not dare to say it quite aloud. 
“Well, I’ll begin my story,” he said 
sullenly, after a moment’s pause, “and 
you may see for yourself. Can’t you 
give one a drop of whisky to clear one’s 
throat before one begins to talk?” 

Harold silently rang the bell, and, 
to the great surprise of the servant who 
appeared, ordered whisky and soda- 
water. “Now, sir,” he said sternly, 
when these refreshments were placed on 
the table at Martin Dale’s elbow, “will 
you have the goodness to go on?” 

The man poured himself out half a 
glass of whisky and mixed a very little 
soda-water with it before he replied. 
There was a vague insolence in his 


MARTIN dale’s STORY. 


203 


manner which Harold resented, but did 
not quite know how to repress. 

“Well, sir,” he began at last, “you 
needn’t blame me for what I’m going 
to tell you. You must remember that 
I was only a paid servant, bound to do 
what I was told, and though I under- 
took certain commissions and offices, 
yet it was not of my own free will, and 
I am not legally responsible. The doc- 
tor always said that himself. ‘Martin,’ 
he said, ‘you are not legally responsible: 
the responsibility rests with me.’ ” 

“The doctor! What doctor?” 

“Why, your friend and guardian. Dr. 
Endicott, of course. A nice friend he’s 
been to you, I can tell you. And a 
nice friend to your father and — to your 
mother, too.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean that Stephen Endicott is a 
man with no heart, no bowels of mercy ; 
that he does not care who’s sacrificed, 
so long as he gets his ends. A few 
years ago he set his heart upon making 
certain experiments complete ; he had a 
theory that he wanted to prove; and 
he said that it must be proved for the 
sake of humanity. It was not for the 
sake of humanity at all ; it was for his 
own sake, and his own reputation. 
And for that, he would have sacrificed 
his dearest friend — did sacrifice him, 
for aught I know; it looks like it.” 

“Come to the point,” said Harold 


204 dr. endicott’s experiment. 


dryly. His pulses were beating like 
sledge hammers ; he could not imagine 
what he was to hear next. Alice’s 
father — ought he to listen to accusations 
against him? — and yet, when his own 
parents were concerned, was it not his 
duty to hear? He steeled himself to 
show no trace of emotion, and said only: 

“Go on.’’ 

“You will remember, no doubt,’’ said 
Dale, with a sly glance at him, “that 
when Dr. Endicott first came to Fenby, 
it was in order to see your mother, 
Mrs. Crawford, at your father’s express 
desire. The doctor was just beginning 
to be known as a specialist in the disease 
from which your mother was supposed 
to suffer;, and he had a theory about 
the cure of this disease which just then 
he was particularly anxious to prove; 
but he had never found a case on which 
he could experiment. He experimented 
on her.’’ 

“Did my father know this?” 

“Yes, as much as he knew anything. 
He wasn’t very quick to take any- 
thing up — your father. But he gave 
Dr. Endicott permission to do what he 
liked ; and the doctor was finely exultant 
about it. ‘The best case I ever saw. 
Dale,’ he said to me. ‘If I cure her, 
my theory will be quite sufficiently 
tested, and I shall publish the result.’ 
He was so anxious about it that he gave 
up his summer holiday, and settled 


MARTIN dale’s STORY. 


205 


down here with little Miss Alice — you’ll 
remember that, although it is a good 
many years ago?” 

“Yes,” said Harold slowly. He also 
remembered that he had always believed 
his action to have been one of pure 
friendliness and kindly feeling on Dr. 
Endicott’s part. Now it appeared that 
it had been performed for his own bene- 
fit simply. 

‘ ‘Well, he attended her for some time, 
and Mrs. Crawford steadily improved. 
He said to me one day, with a look of 
perfect triumph: ‘I’ve done it. Dale; 
the experiment is successful’ — or words 
to that effect. He said, ‘I shall publish 
my notes of the case, and the theories 
I have formed will be proved correct 
in every detail. I never had a better 
chance,’ he said. And it was just after 
that that there came the news of Mrs. 
Crawford’s death. I never saw Dr. 
Endicott so put about in the whole of 
the time -I knew him, as I did just 
then.” 

“For the sake of his own reputation! 
I understand,” said Harold bitterly. 

“What else should it be for? He is 
not the man to care for his friends, 
unless they can help him to something 
that he desires. He cared nothing for 
your father or for your mother — least 
of all for you. Whether he cares for 
his daughter or not, God knows.” 

Harold turned away. He believed 


2o6 dr. endicott’s experiment. 


that Dr. Endicott did care for his 
daughter, but he could not say so just 
then. 

“Yes, he was very much put about,” 
said Martin Dale reflectively. “He 
thought that all his trouble was thrown 
away. He thought that he could 
never get just such a typical case again. 
The only thing that remained to him 
was to try a examination.” 

Harold started slightly. “The cure 
seemed to be complete, but, as the 
patient was dead, the only way of as- 
certaining the fact of cure was by the 
dissecting knife.” 

“It was not allowed!’ cried Harold 
angrily. 

“It was mentioned to your father,” 
said Dale, “and he flew into a tremen- 
dous rage at the very suggestion. The 
idea of having his wife’s body cut into 
a'fter death seemed repulsive to him — as 
I’ve noticed it does appear to many 
men. You share the feeling yourself, 
if I am not mistaken. Speaking for 
myself, I may say that personally I have 
got over any feeling of that kind, 
altogether.” 

“No doubt. Go on, sir!” 

“Again Dr. Endicott was plunged 
into the depths of despair,” said Martin 
deliberately. “He remonstrated in 
vain with your father. They had a 
deadly quarrel on the subject, I believe. 
The doctor poured out his story to me, 


HOLD YOUR TONGUE. 


207 


« 


as he would do now and then when he 
had nobody else to talk to. And then 
the idea occurred to us that, in that 
lonely spot, it would be perfectly easy 
to exhume the body of Mrs. Crawford 
by night, examine it at our leisure, and 
afterward restore it to the grave.” 

‘‘And you did this?” said Harold, 
his eyes aflame. 

‘‘Softly, sir, softly! Whether we did 
or not is the critical point of my story. 
Would you like to know the end? 
Then hand me over that little slip of 
paper with your signature attached, if 
at least you think my information of any 
nature of interest.” 

Harold handed him the check with- 
out a moment’s hesitation, then sat 
down at the desk and waited for the end 
of the story. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

‘‘hold your tongue!” 

“I DID my master’s bidding,” said 
^ Martin Dale softly, as he trans- 
ferred the check to his pocket-book, 
with an air of chastened satisfaction. 
‘‘He told me to procure tools for the 
purpose, and I did so. I was bound 
to obey him, Mr. Crawford. He had 
given me my education for nothing, and 


2o8 dr. endicott^s experiment. 


I had lived with him as his assistant for 
quite a number of years. I could do 
nothing less.” 

“Don’t apologize for what you did; 
go on,” said Harold sternly. The 
visitor hastened to obey. 

“I brought the tools in a box; 
nobody could have guessed what they 
were. I stored them away in the work- 
room — Dr. Endicott’s laboratory, it is 
sometimes called. The doctor did not 
talk about what he was going to do; 
but he said a few words. He calmed 
me when 1 uttered some remonstrances 
and objections to his plan — for I assure 
you, sir, my heart failed me when I 
thought of all that had to be done — the 
digging up of the grave, and the taking 
that dear sweet lady out of her coffin, 
and so on. And I knew of Mr. Craw- 
ford’s dislike to the idea, and I won- 
dered whether he would get to know of 
our doings, and prosecute us — or kill us, 
even ; that’s what I thought of, again 
and again; for I gathered, from words 
that Dr. Endicott let drop, that Mr. 
Crawford was very violent sometimes 
in his moods.” 

Here he paused a little, and glanced 
furtively at Harold, as if to see whether 
the thought in his own brain had pene- 
trated to that of the squire. But he 
could not tell. Harold was sitting pale 
and erect in the chair at the desk ; not a 
muscle of his face had moved. No one 


“hold your tongue! 


209 


could complain of his want of self-com- 
mand now; it was absolutely perfect. 
Martin Dale stared at him a little when 
he discovered this, and then went on 
smoothly, as if he had never suspected 
rocks ahead: 

“But Dr. Endicott told me that I 
need not be afraid, that he undertook 
the whole responsibility, and that none 
of it would fall on my shoulders; he 
also offered a small present for my share 
in the trouble, a present which I must 
confess that I took, as the buying of 
tools, etc., had been managed by my- 
self. On the night after the funeral, 
which Dr. Endicott himself attended, I 
waited in the laboratory until the doctor 
should join me. He came in so muffled 
and disguised that at first I did not know 
him. At midnight we went to the 
grave, carrying our tools.” 

“You infernal villains!” said Harold 
slowly. “Had you no fear or shame 
at the thought of violating my mother’s 
grave?” 

Martin Dale’s wide mouth expanded 
with an unpleasant smile. 

“Fear I had certainly,” he replied. 
“Shame? No. Why should I be 
ashamed of Dr. Endicott’s enthusiasm 
for science, or my implicit obedience to 
his commands? You are like your 
father, Mr. Crawford, and do not 
comprehend the nature of the situa- 
tion.” 


210 DR. ENDICOTT’s EXPERIMENT. 


“I honor and sympathize with my 
father’s feelings. I have no doubt that 
they are incomprehensible to you, sir. 
Kindly go on with your story.” 

“It isn’t a very long one. We dug 
up the grave and opened the coffin.” 

Then Martin Dale came to a sudden 
pause. There was an expression on 
Harold Crawford’s face which rather 
frightened him. 

“I hope, sir,” he said hesitatingly, 
‘‘that you don’t mean to hold me re- 
sponsible. I protest against bodily 
violence. If you use it, you will find 
that I am not unarmed.” 

‘‘I do not mean to use bodily vio- 
lence,” said Harold contemptuously, 
“though I should not mind kicking you 
out of the house as a matter of personal 
taste. But I want to hear the rest of 
your story first. You need not be 
afraid.” 

‘‘I am very near the end of my story 
now — as far as I know it,” said Dale, 
rather sullenly. “Just as we neared the 
climax, so to speak, of the work we were 
interrupted.” 

“Interrupted? By whom?” 

“That I can’t tell you. That you 
may be able to find out for yourself. 
Mr. Harold Crawford. Someone had 
tracked us — someone threw himself upon 
us, attacking Dr. Endicott with what 
seemed to be prodigious strength — a tall 
broad figure in a cape or cloak.” 


HOLD YOUR TONGUE ! 


2II 


Harold started to his feet. “Good 
God!” he cried. “It must have been 
— my father.” 

“I have thought so since, Mr. Craw- 
ford,” said Martin quietly. 

Harold stood for a moment, as if 
ready to rush away on some wild errand 
of justice or revenge; then his muscles 
seemed to relax, and he sank back in 
his chair, covering his face with his 
hands. He felt faint and sick ; a crowd 
of terrible possibilities presented them- 
selves to his mind and almost over- 
whelmed him. For a few moments he 
kept silence, then looked up with a 
ghastly face, and motioned to Martin to 
proceed. 

‘ ‘Well, sir, when I saw how things had 
turned out, I was in a dreadful fright. 
I didn’t know how we were to avoid 
exposure and disgrace and punishment. 
I thought to myself, ‘The sooner I’m 
out of this the better,’ so off I went, 
full pelt, to the gate; leaving the two 
men struggling together beside the open 
grave.” 

“Yes, and what was the end?” 

“I told you I didn’t know.” 

“You did not stay to see?” 

“Not I — I made my way out of the 
place as fast as I could.” 

“One must not be surprised at any 
sort of skulking cowardice, after what 
you have told me,” said Harold, in 
biting tones; “and yet I am a little 


212 DR. ENDICOTT's EXPERIMENT. 


astonished that you did not wait to see 
the result.” 

‘‘Fact was, I thought the game was 
up,” said Martin Dale. “I did not see 
how Endicott could get away without 
being discovered. The man, whoever 
it was that had found him, could not 
be silenced. There was sure to be an 
awful row about the whole affair, and 
I was determined to be out of it. I 
slipped back to the house, and took a 
few things that belonged to me” — and 
other things that did not belong to him 
if the truth had been told! — ‘‘and 
struck out, ’cross country, for the junc- 
tion. I thought the doctor was ruined, 
and that it was no use my sticking to 
him — I’d better be off as soon as pos- 
sible. I didn’t know then how clever 
the doctor was.” 

“What did you do?” said Harold, 
looking at him much as one looks at a 
noxious reptile, which we would prefer 
to keep at arm’s length. ‘‘Where did 
you go?” 

“I went to Liverpool. Thought I 
would start for New York at once; but 
luck was against me. I fell ill, had to 
go to hospital, and did not know any- 
thing more for the next six weeks. 
Then I was afraid to inquire. I heard 
some cock-and-bull story about a doctor 
being sent to penal servitude for mal- 
practices, and I fancied it must be 
Endicott. So I made my way to the 


HOLD YOUR TONGUE ! 


213 


States, and should have stopped there 
if I hadn’t had the devil’s own luck. 
I was cleaned out at last; and then I 
thought I would come back to England 
and see whether there was anything to 
be made out of what I knew.” 

“You did not seem to know much 
when you spoke to me first.” 

“I did not know that your father 
had — disappeared, if you mean that,” 
said Dale meaningly. 

‘‘You said to me that you thought 
you had seen him since I had.” 

‘‘Of course. It was your father that 
was struggling with Dr. Endicott in 
the churchyard: I could swear to that. 
Besides, I heard his voice. But what I 
never could make out was — whether 
that little struggle ever got into the 
papers or not. From what I have heard 
since I came back I conclude that it 
did not.” 

‘‘No,” said Harold, ‘‘it did not.” 

‘‘This is, as I thought, the first 
you’ve heard of it?” 

‘‘It is.” 

‘‘Don’t you think you ought to give 
me five-and-twenty pounds more for the 
information?” And then, as Harold 
turned away from him in speechless 
disgust, Mr. Dale added with some 
attempt at jocoseness; ‘‘Fifty’s small 
enough for giving you news of your 
father, isn’t it? Besides, if you take 
the matter up and investigate it, you 


214 dr. endicott^s experiment. 


can’t get much further without me, you 
know. Dr. Endicott says that he’ll 
deny the whole story, if I tell it.” 

‘‘You have been to him?” 

‘‘Oh, yes. I’ve been to him.” 

‘‘And how much did he give you?” 

Martin Dale brought his fist down on 
the table with an angry stroke. ‘‘He 
would not give more than a sovereign, 
‘for old acquaintance’ sake,’ as he put it, 
the lying hypocrite. I thought I should 
have made something out of him — what 
with the threat of exposing him in the 
newspapers — telling you the story — in- 
forming his daughter, and so on.” 

A strange quiver suddenly passed 
over Harold’s face. ‘‘And he refused 
to listen?” 

‘‘Yes; he said that all the world knew 
as much of that story as I did — or some- 
thing of that kind. An infernal lie! 
Nobody knows a word about it; and 
that is why I have come to you, sir, 
because I believe that there is still 
more — more than Stephen Endicott 
chooses to tell.” 

‘‘You believe,” said Harold slowly, 
‘‘that he knows what became of my 
father?” 

‘‘I believe he does — only too well,” 
said Martin Dale. 

There was a pause: Harold was still 
very pale, and his face was set in an 
expression which Martin Dale could 
not translate. 


HOLD YOUR TONGUE ! ” 


215 


“Think what it all points to/’ said 
the latter, in a tone of oily persuasive- 
ness. “Think what it means. Those 
two men were struggling together for 
life and death, at a certain hour on a 
certain night. Next day one of these 
men has disappeared — what became of 
him? The man with whom he was 
fighting preserves a discreet silence — in 
itself suspicious — as to their quarrel. 
What’s the inference? Foul play! It’s 
my belief, Mr. Harold Crawford, that 
your esteemed father was made away 
with by Dr. Stephen Endicott, and 
that it will fall to your lot to bring the 
crime home to him.’’ 

The last words seemed to sting the 
young man into new life and vigor. 
But his reply was not such as Martin 
had looked for. It consisted in the 
terse ejaculation, “May God forbid!’’^ 

Then the young squire turned to his 
desk, and drew out his check-book. 

“Come,’’ he said sharply, “I’ve 
listened to you, and am willing to pay 
you a price for your information; or 
rather for your secrecy. Do you under- 
stand? I’m willing to pay you so much 
a year, if you stay away from this 
place — if out of England, all the better! 
— and if you hold your tongue!’’ 

“Hold my tongue!’’ exclaimed 
Martin Dale, in great bewilderment of 
spirit. “But! thought you would wish 
to bring the culprit to justice.’ 


2i6 dr. endicott’s experiment. 


“We don’t know that he is the culprit. 
We do not know even whether my 
father is dead or not,’’ said Harold 
resolutely. “We have nothing but a 
bare possibility to go upon. Neverthe- 
less, I don’t choose that rumors of this 
kind should get about the neighbor- 
hood. Dr. Endicott was an old friend 
of my parents; and although what you 
have said about his reopening my 
mother’s grave surprises and shocks me 
very much, yet that is a very different 
thing from committing murder. Will a 
hundred a year satisfy you?’’ 

“No, it won’t,’’ said Martin Dale 
sullenly. “A pretty son you are, Mr. 
Crawford, to be so chary of avenging 
your father out of friendship for your 
guardian.’’ 

“That is no affair of yours. Keep a 
civil tongue in your head, you cur, or 
I’ll have you kicked out of the house!” 
said Harold passionately. Then he 
caught himself up, and spoke calmly 
once more. “What amount do you 
wish for? I need not give you any- 
thing at all ; it is only that I wish to 
guard my friend’s reputation from your 
lying tongue. Two hundred a year?” 

After a little hesitation Martin Dale 
consented to receive this sum, in quar- 
terly installments, on condition that he 
said no more about what he had seen in 
the churchyard, unless Harold Craw- 
ford called upon him to speak, and that 


HOLD YOUR tongue!” 


217 


he reside at a place not within a hundred 
miles of Fenby. And then at last he 
took his leave, with the first installment 
of his annuity in his pocket, and a satis- 
fied belief that he had done well for him- 
self, under the circumstances, although 
they had not been exactly to his mind. 

As for Harold, when he was once 
more alone, he broke down completely. 
The suspicion which had been thrown 
upon Dr. Endicott’s character and good 
faith was bitterly painful to him — more 
painful, even, than Dr. Endicott’s 
recent behavior to himself had been. 
For although Harold had never liked his 
guardian overmuch, he had believed in 
him. He had thought him a man of 
honor, a man of principle ; he had ad- 
mired his intellect and revered his moral 
strength. And to think for a moment 
that he was guilty of the crime attributed 
to him — guilty, moreover, of treachery, 
fraud, meanness, even of cowardice, the 
very vice which Harold hated and ab- 
hored — was a great shock to the young 
man. And that it should be Alice’s 
father, too ! No, it was impossible that 
he should believe these things of Alice’s 
father, and he would not entertain for 
a moment the idea that they could be 
true. 

But the roots of suspicion strike deep. 
The more Harold thought of the cir- 
cumstances, the more it seemed to him 
terribly possible that Martin Dale’s story 


2i8 dr. endicott’s experiment. 


should be true. Dr. Endicott’s unrea- 
sonable anger, when Harry Crawford’s 
disappearance had been spoken of by 
his son, would then be explained. The 
mysterious quarrel between the squire 
and the doctor, a day or two after Mrs. 
Crawford’s death — a quarrel which had 
become known to the whole neighbor- 
hood — would then be explained. Even 
Dr. Endicott’s reluctance to accept 
Harold as a son-in-law was capable of 
explanation on other grounds besides the 
ground of tendency to disease. Harold 
groaned aloud as this conviction forced 
itself upon him. 

He did not know what to do. He 
had silenced Martin Dale, but was that 
enough? Ought he, indeed, to have 
silenced him at all? And was there any 
method of arriving at the truth? 

He thought at first that he would not 
mention to any living soul what he had 
heard. But the temptation to confide in 
the vicar proved too strong for him, 
after what had previously passed be- 
tween them. And probably to tell the 
whole story to the vicar was about the 
wisest thing that he could do. Mr. 
Wykeham pledged himself solemnly to 
secrecy, but half repented the pledge 
before half the tale was told. 

“It is a very serious matter, Harold,’’ 
he said at the close of the narrative. 

“You need hardly tell me that sir,” 
said Harold, rather gruffly. 


HOLD YOUR tongue!” 219 


“The question is — is there anything 
to be done?” 

“Could you go to Dr. Endicott your- 
self, sir, and ask him.” 

“My dear Harold, do you think it 
would be of any use?” 

“It might. He might tell us all that 
we want to know.” 

“I think it more likely that he would 
deny the whole story,” said the vicar 
gravely, “and then we should be worse 
off than we were; because our sus- 
picions would not exactly be allayed, 
and we should have no excuse for search- 
ing further into the matter.” 

“How can we search any further?” 
said Harold gloomily; and for an in- 
stant or two the men sat silent. Then 
the vicar spoke. 

“Harold, do you know my nephew, 
Cyril Wykeham?” 

Harold shook his head. 

“A young doctor. He is staying 
here at present. If you will allow me, 
I will put a question to him without 
telling him any of these facts. I should 
very much like to know whether, at 
this distance of time, we could still find 
out by examination whether Mrs. Craw- 
ford’s body had been touched since it 
was placed in the ground. If it had 
been removed or handled in any way, 
and we could ascertain the fact, it would 
go some way toward determining the 
truth of Martin Dale’s story.” 


220 DR. ENDICOTT’s EXPERIMENT. 


“Ask him,” said Harold curtly. 
“But if it could be done — how would it 
affect us? We could not go ourselves — 
like Endicott.” 

“It would not be necessary,” said 
the vicar quietly. “I should never do 
anything illegal. I would take steps to 
procure an order for the exhumation of 
the body.” 

Harold shuddered a little, but an- 
swered steadily: 

‘Very well, sir. Do as you think 
fit.” 


CHAPTER XVH. 

TWO QUESTIONS. 

/^YRIL WYKEHAM was a brisk 
young doctor of the modern scien- 
tific type, and he pricked up his ears at 
the notion that anything so exciting and 
interesting as the exhumation of a dead 
woman’s body was likely to be going on 
in the placid little village of Fenby. 
Mr. Wykeham did not at first supply 
him with all the facts of the case, but 
merely asked him whether it would be 
possible to ascertain, after twelve years, 
whether or not any traces of previous 
exhumation and autopsy remained. 

At first Cyril was doubtful. “It 
depends so much on the nature of the 


TWO QUESTIONS. 


221 


coffin and of the soil , ” he said. ‘ ‘ Every- 
thing might have crumbled away to dust, 
you know ; it takes less than that time 
to do it when a body is exposed to the 
natural chemical influences. But if it 
were a lead coffin ” 

“It was not that,” said the vicar. 
“But it’s a curious fact — there is some- 
thing of an embalming quality in the soil 
of our churchyard ; it has been dis- 
cussed and written about, times without 
number. In several cases, when the 
alterations in the church were going on, 
and coffins were accidentally injured, it 
was found that even the features of 
persons who had died many years be- 
fore remained intact.’’ 

“I’ve heard of that before,” said 
Cyril, “but never quite credited it, 
saving your presence, vicar. However, 
here’s a splendid chance to put the 
matter to the proof. Let us dig up the 
grave you are thinking about — whose is 
it, by the way?’’ 

“Well, Cyril, I’ll think it over first, 
before I tell yon.’’ 

He had not counted on his nephew’s 
shrewdness. “You need not take the 
trouble,” said the young man coolly, 
“It is the late Mrs. Crawford’s, of 
course.” 

“How do you know that?” said the 
vicar, startled. 

“Hasn’t Hal Crawford been closeted 
with you day after day in your study? 


222 DR. ENDICOTT’S EXPERIMENT. 


coming out with as troubled an air as if 
he had the cares of the universe on his 
shoulders! Have you not both walked 
up to the churchyard and surveyed her 
grave half a dozen times in the course 
of the last few days? And are not cer- 
tain of my medical books — all bearing 
on one subject — missing from my 
shelves? I know what Mrs. Crawford 
suffered from, of course ; all the world 
knows, because Endicott never dis- 
guised the fact that he experimented 
upon her — I suppose he had a post- 
mortem ? ” 

“That is just what we should like to 
find out,” said Mr. Wykeham. 

“What on earth for?” said Cyril, 
staring. 

“That I can’t tell you, unless Harold 
gives me leave. If we do this thing, 
Cyril, we may count on you to help us, 
may we not?” 

“Certainly, I shall be delighted,” said 
Cyril, with alacrity. And the vicar 
went to interview Harold once more on 
the subject. 

He found the young man evidently 
suffering — physically and mentally. He 
was very white, and the circles round 
his eyes were black, while his brow was 
contracted by pain. 

“Headache,” he said lightly, in 
answer to the vicar’s anxious inquiries. 
“It will pass off; I’ve had a good deal 
of it lately,” 


TWO QUESTIONS. 


223 


“You want change of air,” said the 
vicar. 

He was astonished by the suddenness 
and sharpness of Harold’s reply. 

“I want ease of mind,” he said. “If 
I had that, I should do well enough.” 

He listened almost in silence to what 
the vicar had to say respecting Cyril’s 
opinion ; then he got up and went to the 
window, and stood there for some time 
without speaking. 

“Well?” said the vicar at length. 

“It seems to me,” Harold said, in a 
subdued voice, “that we are not acting’ 
fairly. ” 

“My dear boy — how? to whom?” 

“To Dr. Endicott.” 

“If matters are as we fear they are,” 
said the vicar, very gravely, “I am 
afraid that Dr. Endicott cannot be saved 
even by you, Harold.” 

“I know — I know. But it is for her 
sake, too; not only for his. Can’t you 
understand, sir, that I most earnestly 
hope that Martin Dale’s insinuations 
may have no foundation of truth?” 

“I understand that, certainly,” said 
Mr. Wykeham, with some emotion; 
“but on the other hand, Harold, I fear 
that you think they are true — or why 
should you have paid Martin Dale to 
go away?” 

“That is against me, isn’t it?” said 
Harold, smiling in a constrained man- 
ner, “but I can’t pretend to be very 


224 dr. endicott’s experiment. 


logical just now. The one thing I know 
is this — I will not go on acting behind 
Dr. Endicott’s back: I shall go to him 
myself, tell him what I think and do not 
want to think, and what I am going 
to do.” 

The vicar paused for a little while 
before he answered: 

“You may be right, Harold. At any 
rate you will be acting in a very straight- 
forward and generous way. But you 
will have a hard task.” 

“I know that. ” 

“And you will not be successful.” 

“You mean that he will tell me noth- 
ing?” 

“Not a word.” 

But Harold, in his youthful hope and 
simplicity, did not quite believe this. 
He thought that Stephen Endicott might 
be induced to tell him the whole story, 
as far as he knew it, of Lilian Craw- 
ford’s death and burial, and of her hus- 
band’s subsequent disappearance. 

He did not know whether the doctor 
were at home or not, on the evening 
when he set out for the Manor House. 
But he could not wait to find out. He 
felt that he must go at once and do what 
he believed to be his duty. There was 
a certain awkwardness in walking up to 
the house and asking for the doctor, of 
which, at any other time, he would have 
been painfully conscious; but on this 
occasion it seemed to him a trifle. He 


TWO QUESTIONS. 


225 


had chosen a rather late hour, in order 
to show at once that his visit was not to 
be esteemed an ordinary call : and he 
sent in his card with these words written 
upon it: “May I see you on important 
business for a few minutes?” For 
answer the doctor himself appeared, and, 
after a cold and rather surprised word 
of greeting, conducted him to the study. 

It was a warm summer night, and 
the sky was not yet dark ; nevertheless 
the doctor at once lighted the lamps and 
pulled down the blinds, as if he did not 
wish to remember the sweet influences 
of flowers and stars. He indicated a 
chair to his visitor, but Harold would 
not sit down. Perhaps this fact struck 
Dr. Endicott, as at last he faced his 
guest and found him still standing. 

“You say your business is impor- 
tant,” he began. “If so, it is fortunate 
that you came to-night. I and my 
daughter are leaving England to-mor- 
row. * * 

“I think that, when you have heard 
what I have to say, sir, you may see the 
advisability of putting off your journey 
for some little time,” said Harold 
gently. 

“Why should I put it off? Because 
you do not wish to lose my daughter 
out of your sight, I suppose. I tell 
you that that is all folly ; I will not hear 
a word of it. If you have come here 
to-night for the purpose of pleading 


226 DR. ENDICOTT’s EXPERIMENT. 


your cause, playing on my feelings, and 
so on, you are much mistaken, and had 
better take yourself off at once.” 

There was a change in his voice. It 
was no longer suave, smooth, composed; 
there was a harshness in it which had 
never been there before. Harold 
looked at him earnestly. He saw — and 
saw with deep pity and deep alarm — 
that the man’s face had hardened and 
darkened during the past few weeks; 
that it was no longer the bland and 
smiling mask which the doctor had 
worn so successfully for many years 
before his patients and his friends; it 
was the face of a man of strong will, 
fierce passions, and evil life. It was 
not the face of Stephen Endicott at all; 
it was the face of a man whom Harold 
Crawford did not know. Involuntarily 
he felt something that was almost like 
fear, but he thrust it back, and remem- 
bered that the task before him had been 
undertaken for Alice’s sake. 

‘T have not come to speak about your 
daughter. Dr. Endicott,” said Harold 
gravely ; “but about yourself ! ’ ’ 

“That is a new departure.” The 
doctor sneered. “And pray, what do 
you wish to say about myself?” 

“I am in a very painful position,” 
said the younger man. “I shall seem 
to you as if I were merely insulting you; 
yet insult is very far from my thoughts. 
I came here, sir, to give you a sort of 


TWO QUESTIONS. 


227 


warning — and I trust you will pardon 
me, if it is unwelcome.” 

‘‘Are you mad, Harold Crawford? 
A warning — from you ! This is ridicu- 
lous!” 

‘‘It may not seem so ridiculous to 
you,” Harold responded steadily, ‘‘if I 
mention the name of — Martin Dale: a 
man well-known to you, I think, in days 
gone by.” 

He saw that he had produced an 
impression. The doctor seemed sud- 
denly to pull himself together, and to 
reflect. 

‘‘Martin Dale!” he said, pulling the 
mask, as it were, over his face again. 
‘‘I recollect — a lying, dishonest scoun- 
drel, who robbed me and ran away — 
what of him, Harold?” 

‘‘He has been to see me,” said 
Harold, in some embarrassment. 

‘‘And he has told you a pack of lies 
about me. I’ll be bound. I under- 
stand,” said Dr. Endicott, surveying 
the young man’s face with an air of 
pitying amusement, behind which, how- 
ever, even to Harold, there seemed to 
lurk a never - sleeping watchfulness. 
“And you have come to put me on my 
guard? That is very kind of you, my 
dear boy, and just what I should have 
expected from your character. But as 
to this Martin Dale, he and his stories 
are hardly worth the trouble!” 

‘‘You have to some extent guessed 


228 DR. ENDICOTT'S EXPERIMENT. 


the nature of my visit,” said Harold, 
recovering himself and speaking with 
emphasis; “but you do not in anyway 
realize the gravity of the accusation 
which he brings against you!” 

“Do I not? Well, perhaps not,” 
said the doctor easily. “It goes for 
very little, whatever it may be. If you 
had kicked him out of the house, 
Harold, or given him a good thrashing, 
we should hear no more about it.” 

“We shall hear no more about it — 
from him. I have taken care of that,” 
said Harold, with some grimness ; 
“but there is more to be said. He 
told me a long story ; and — in short — 1 
am not satisfied.” 

The pleasantness went out of Dr. 
Endicott’s face. ‘‘What the devil are 
you not satisfied about?” he said. 

‘‘I cannot decide in my own mind 
whether he spoke the truth or not,” 
said Harold frankly. 

‘‘And what does it matter whether he 
spoke the truth or not?” 

‘‘It matters to me, because it concerns 
my father’s fate, and the way in which 
he and my mother were treated by 
yourself. And it matters also,” said 
the young man, his voice softening, 
‘‘because it concerns your honor. Dr. 
Endicott, and you are the father of the 
woman that I love.” 

‘‘I am much obliged to you,” said 
the doctor sarcastically. But he had 


TWO QUESTIONS. 


229 


changed color, and turned away as if 
he did not wish to meet Harold’s eye. 
“You are complimentary. Pray, what 
do you come to me for?” 

‘‘Because I want you to be so good 
as to answer me two questions.” 

“Consider the conversation ended, 
then. I am not to be questioned by a 
boy.” 

“I fear, sir,” said Harold, with much 
hesitation and concern, “that if you do 
not answer me you will be asked the 
same questions by others ; and perhaps 
less considerately.” 

This remark seemed to strike Dr. 
Endicott. He moved uneasily, and 
did not speak at once. 

“You had better ask your questions 
and get them over, then,” he said, try- 
ing to keep up the contemptuous tone. 
“But I do not promise to answer. If 
they are insolent and useless questions, 
I shall refuse to answer. You ask then 
at your peril.” 

“There is nothing insolent in the 
questions. Whether they are useless 
or not, I think it is for me to judge. 
Will you tell me whether you made an 
examination of my mother’s body after 
her death?” 

“I did not. Your father refused to 
allow it.” 

“Martin Dale’s statement is to the 
effect that you went with him to the 
churchyard, dug up the grave, and ex- 


230 DR. ENDICOTT'S EXPERIMENT. 


burned the body. At least, he believes 
so.” 

Here Harold made a mistake. He 
should have spoken with confidence; 
and not said that Martin “believed so.” 
And emboldened by this mistake, which 
he was quick to see, Stephen Endicott 
went on to make another. For if he 
had boldly acknowledged that he had 
attempted and then relinquished that 
attempt upon the grave, it was possible 
that Harold would have given up his 
first idea of reopening it. 

“No,” said Dr. Endicott. “The 
man lied. I never went near the grave. 
If anyone went there, it must have been 
himself.” 

“That is, of course, possible,” said 
Harold. “I come to my second ques- 
tion — what do you know of my father’s 
disappearance that the world does not 
know?” 

“Your first question is natural 
enough,” said the doctor. “Your 
second is as insolent as it is futile. But 
I will answer it, and by that you will 
spare me future insults. I know noth- 
ing — absolutely nothing — of your 
father’s disappearance but what the 
whole world knows.” 

Harold was at first staggered by the 
doctor’s manner; and then relieved. 
Surely he could not be playing a part ; 
he must be speaking the truth when his 
manner was so bold, so weighty, and 


TWO QUESTIONS. 


231 


yet so undisturbed. His brow cleared 
as he replied : 

“I am glad indeed to hear you say so. 
You know there can be no question 
between us as to your good faith: I 
trust your word most absolutely. At 
the same time it seems to me that these 
slanders against your good name ought 
to be cleared up, sir. I should like, 
with your permission, to tell you the 
whole of Martin Dale’s story. He 
assures me that he saw, with his own 
eyes, my father in the churchyard that 
night — saw him struggling and fighting 
desperately with someone — yourself, 
he says — beside an open grave.” 

“Folly!” ejaculated Stephen Endi- 
cott. “How you, a sensible man, can 
let yourself be carried away by a story 
of this kind — upon my word, Harold, I 
cannot imagine. I will not listen to a 
word more of it.” 

Harold looked at him in surprise. It 
seemed to him that the doctor’s sudden 
anger was unreasonable. He remon- 
strated. 

“It would really be better, sir, if you 
would kindly listen to the whole story, 
and give me the means of contradicting 
it, should it ever be repeated. There is 
no absolute means of securing Dale’s 
silence; and one ought to be on one’s 
guard when slanders of this sort are 
current.” 

“Slanders of what sort? I am at a 


232 DR. ENDICOTt’s EXPERIMENT. 


loss to know what you mean,” said the 
doctor angrily. 

“I did not want to put it into words,” 
said Harold, “but since you compel me. 
Dr. Endicott, I shall do so. Martin 
Dale suggests, if he does not actually 
asseverate, that you, on the night after 
my mother’s funeral — you — killed my 
father. I want the means of contradict- 
ing this story, and of establishing your 
innocence — of which nobody is more 
absolutely certain than I am myself.” 

But his last words passed unheeded. 
Stephen Endicott had turned round, an 
image of livid fury, and struck him in 
the face. The two men glared at each 
other savagely for a moment; then 
Harold, who had raised his hand, let it 
sink to his side. 

“I will not forget that you are Alice’s 
father,” he said simply. 

Dr. Endicott, his anger past, leaned 
back against the heavy writing table; 
his breath came in thick pants, and the 
perspiration stood in heavy beads upon 
his brow. Despite his own righteous 
anger, Harold could not but look at him 
compassionately. 

“I know that it must have been a 
shock to you, sir,” he said, “and I can 
forgive a blow given in haste on such 
provocation. You will remember, I 
hope, that I have done all that I can do 
to spare you vexation and annoyance. 
As my appeal to you has produced no 


TWO QUESTIONS. 


233 


result, I shall go on to the next step that 
has been advised. I shall proceed to an 
examination of my mother’s grave; I 
will find out whether it has been tam- 
pered with or not. It is not too late.” 

He scarcely knew whether he was 
heard or not. Dr. Endicott had sunk 
down into the nearest chair, and was 
hiding his face in his hands. Harold 
stepped to the door, opened it, and went 
out into the hall, making his way rather 
blindly to the front door, for he was still 
a little dazed by the blow and by the 
violence of his own emotions. 

But ere he reached the door a hand 
was laid upon his arm, a gentle voice 
sounded in his ear: “Harold, what is 
it? I heard your voices; and father 
seemed so angry. O Harold, dfear!” 

He turned, and with one swift move- 
ment gathered her into his strong arms, 
and pressed his lips to hers. “My love ! 
my love! my darling!” 

She stirred in his arms like a fright- 
ened bird. 

“Harold, is there anything wrong? 
anything new, I mean?” 

“Darling,” said Harold, looking into 
her loving eyes with love which was no 
weaker than her own, “darling, will you 
always trust me?” 

“Always, Harold.” 

“Even if you hear things against 
me — even if things go very, very 
wrong?” 


234 dr. endicott^s experiment. 


“Always, my dearest.” 

“And you will love me?” 

“Forever,” she answered, and then 
they said good-by. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

A SECOND TIME. 

“^Y own theory is this,” said Cyril 
Wykeham, when his uncle had put 
him into full possession of the facts 
which had come to Harold’s knowledge : 
“Endicott did get hold of the body, 
which accounts for his information on 
the subject of Mrs. Crawford’s disease; 
but that he was discovered in the very 
act by Crawford himself, and that the 
struggle which followed led to Craw- 
ford’s death.” 

“Do you mean that you think Stephen 
Endicott murdered his friend?” said 
the vicar incredulously. 

“Not designedly so. He struck too 
hard ; probably rendered him insensible, 
and took him perhaps to his own 
house, where he died. Endicott’s 
laboratory was more useful than we 
know. He most likely reduced the 
body to ashes, and ” 

“My dear Cyril, your imagination is 
running away with you. Remember 
the issues involved,” said Mr. Wyke- 


A SECOND TIME. 


235 


ham, in a tone of reproof; for he could 
not help fancying that he distinguished 
a tone of enjoyment in his nephew’s 
summary of the situation. 

“Oh, well,” said Cyril, more seri- 
ously, “I hope it may not be so, of 
course ; but in the meantime I should 
strongly advise an examination of the 
coffin and the grave: there may certainly 
be indications that it was disturbed 
after the burial, and in that case I 
should advise Harold to take out a 
warrant for Dr. Endicott’s arrest.” 

“Harold will never do that,” said 
the vicar, in a low tone. 

“Somebody will have to do it, if our 
conjectures be true. Why not Harold?’ ’ 

“Because, my dear Cyril, Harold is 
unfortunately attached to Dr. Endicott’s 
daughter.” 

“That is awkward,” said the flippant 
Cyril. “Nevertheless, a man can’t let 
his father’s murderer go unhanged, can 
he? A little difficult to marry the 
daughter afterward, I allow.” 

“Poor Alice!” sighed the vicar. 
“There is no happiness for her, I fear. 
I trust, sir,” assuming a rather monitory 
tone, “you will let this incident be a 
warning to you against the evil effects 
of an overweening ambition. If Ste- 
phen Endicott had not been led astray 
by his desire to achieve distinction for 
himself ” 

“Oh, come. Uncle John, that’s going 


236 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


it too strong,” said Cyril good-hu- 
moredly. “Endicott’s made a lotof dis- 
coveries: he’s one of our best men, and 
you needn’t tell me it’s all because he 
wanted distinction for himself. The 
man must have wanted to relieve pain 
and cure disease, or he Avouldn’t have 
done all he has done.” 

“Perhaps you’re right, Cyril,” said 
the vicar, in a low, moved tone. “I 
ought not to have spoken in that way, 
I acknowledge. Yes, yes! poor Endi- 
cott has no doubt tried to do good as 
well as evil, and I hope that we may yet 
find that we are misjudging him.” 

“Give the devil his due,” said the 
young doctor. “I believe Endicott 
murdered Crawford, but he’s a capital 
man in the dissecting room, for all that. ’ ’ 

At which the vicar frowned, and 
directly changed the topic of conversa- 
tion. 

He was struck by the fact that Dr. 
Endicott did not go away, after all. 
He sent his daughter to the seaside with 
her companion, and remained alone in 
the Manor House. This change of 
plan was significant. He had so far 
taken Harold’s warning, that he would 
not leave England at present. And it 
was probable that he was wishful to 
remain at Fenby in order to see what 
Harold would do next. 

But at this point the matter was to 
some extent taken out of Harold’s 


A SECOND TIME. 


237 


hands. The authorities had got wind 
of it, and interfered. Poor Harold had 
hoped that any inquiry or examination 
of the grave might take place in absolute 
privacy ; but his hopes were destined to 
disappointment. An order had to be 
procured from the magistrates for the 
opening of Mrs. Crawford’s grave; and 
representatives of the law had to be 
present, as well as the parties immedi- 
ately interested. The public was, how- 
ever, excluded, and even the reporters 
were kept out ; so that as much secrecy 
was observed as could be expected in 
these days of newspaper accounts of 
every incident. 

The day on which the examination 
of the grave was to be conducted was 
cloudy, but warm. There was a little 
touch of autumnal stillness in the air. 
It was tolerably early in the morning 
when the little group gathered in the 
churchyard; a motley group, consisting 
of Harold Crawford, the vicar, and his 
nephew; a couple of magistrates, and 
the family lawyer ; a well-known doctor, 
and two strong men who were to act 
as grave-diggers under the supervision 
of the old sexton, Mr. Jacobs. Very 
little was said before the work began. 
Perhaps it was felt that nothing could 
be said in the presence of the pale-faced, 
silent young fellow to whom these pro- 
ceedings must seem something like 
desecration. He stood beside the 


238 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


grave — a noticeable figure, with head 
bent, and a stern determination upon 
his face, and careless talk died at the 
sight of him. 

The vicar had tried to persuade him 
to absent himself. But Harold had 
flung back the proposition with passion- 
ate resentment. “Not be present?” 
he cried. ‘‘Who should be present 
then? I must be there to see that my 
mother’s grave is treated with rever- 
ence.” 

‘‘My dear Harold, would you not 
trust me for that?” 

‘‘Oh, yes, I would trust you, sir; 
forgive me if I speak roughly — I hardly 
know what I say. But I must be there, 
I am sure of that — and you must not 
try to keep me away.” 

And the vicar tried no more. 

There was a curious silence in the air. 
It was a day on which the birds seem 
to forget to chirp, and the trees are 
motionless and still. The sounds of 
pick-ax and shovel seemed perternatu- 
rally loud. Mr. Wykeham could see 
how they jarred on Harold’s every 
nerve; the young man grew paler and 
paler as time went on. Had he been a 
woman he would have fainted or wept; 
being a man, and a young one, he stood 
up at the head of the grave with a stony 
rigidity of expression, which was only a 
mask for keen emotion. Not a man 
there but understood that frozen fixity 


A SECOND TIME. 


239 


of look, and respected him for his self- 
control. 

It seemed like an eternity before the 
sound was heard which showed that the 
lowest depth was reached, and that the 
pick had struck against the coffin-lid. 
For a moment, there was a pause. The 
onlookers pressed closer to the open 
grave. The sexton gave some low 
directions to his assistants. In a very 
few minutes the coffin -lid was laid bare. 
Then arose a low cry from more than 
one observer’s lips. “It is -unscrewed. 
It was never properly fastened down!’’ 

“It was fastened down properly 
enough when I saw it lowered there,’’ 
said the sexton grimly. “Here, doctor, 
there’s room for you beside it. It’s 
partly fastened, you *see — prize it open 
— there it goes. Ah!’’ 

His exclamation was echoed by a 
shuddering sigh from others at the brink 
of the grave. The soil had, as the 
vicar had foreseen, some strange em- 
balming quality, and when the lid of the 
coffin was removed the face and figure 
of its occupant were revealed in all their 
natural hues and outlines, as if the 
burial of the dead had taken place only 
an hour before. The texture of the 
clothes could still be seen, the hair was 
unchanged, the color of the face as it 
had been in days of life. But — this was 
what caused that exclamation of horror 
and dismay — the body was not that of 


240 DR. ENDICOTT's EXPERIMENT. 


Lilian Crawford in her grave-clothes, 
but that of her husband, the man who 
had mysteriously disappeared from 
human ken so many years ago. 

It was Harold who first uttered an 
intelligible word. “Father! Father!” 
he cried, in agonized tones, and then 
staggered and fell to the ground in a 
swoon. The shock following upon the 
long strain had been too much for him, 
and he had to be caried away to his own 
house, where he lay insensible for many 
hours. “The best thing that could hap- 
pen to him,” said the doctor. It was 
only to be hoped that he would not 
waken in delirium. 

Even as the other bystanders stood 
and looked, a strange thing happened. 
Through the figure that lay before them 
so straight and still, a quiver seemed to 
pass; and then it crumbled before their 
sight — crumbled away to ashes, and was 
seen no more. 

“It is God’s doing,” said the sexton. 
‘‘He’s kept him for this many a day that 
the wicked doings of someone might be 
exposed; for I suppose it’s pretty clear 
that the poor gentleman met with foul 
play.” 

He was hushed, and told not to an- 
ticipate the finding of a jury; for an 
inquest would have to be held over poor 
Harry Crawford’s remains. The cause 
of death had been clear enough to the 
doctor’s practised eyes. The man’s 


A SECOND TIME. 


241 


skull had been well-nigh shattered by a 
blow. 

The vicar had himself descended into 
the grave and looked on the face of his 
friend. And it was then — although no 
one noticed the movement — that he put 
out his hand and touched something that 
shone and glittered in the folds of the 
cloak thrown over the dead man’s body. 
No one saw what he touched or what he 
took away. 

And next moment it was all over. 
Dust and ashes remained, crumbling 
fragments that meant nothing, and told 
no story. The air of day had put an 
end to that wonderful state of preser- 
vation in which the body had been kept ; 
and no trace of it was left behind. 

But where was the body of Lilian 
Crawford? 

At first it was imagined that this might 
yet be found. The sexton fancied that 
it lay, perhaps, underneath her hus- 
band’s remains; but an investigation 
revealed the fact that it was not there 
at all. To the mind of the vicar and 
his nephew only one explanation of this 
fact was possible. Martin Dale’s story 
had been true, and Dr. Endicott had 
taken away the body of Mrs. Crawford 
in order to use it for his owm investiga- 
tions. And that he had also committed 
the murder there could be no reasonable 
doubt. 

The vicar’s mind was torn in twain. 


242 DR. ENDICOTT's EXPERIMENT. 


He loved Alice Endicott as a daughter; 
he loved Harold Crawford as a son. 
That Alice should know herself to be 
the daughter of a murderer, and that 
Harold should bring that murderer to 
justice, was enough to break their hearts 
and kill the happiness of both. And 
for what end? “It is not fair,” said 
the vicar to himself; “it is not fair. 
The murderer will be punished, no 
doubt, by God himself. He is pun- 
ished already, by the look I have seen 
sometimes upon his haggard face. Is 
there nothing to be done?” 

His hand had closed involuntarily 
over something which he had taken from 
the coffin that morning, and he bent his 
head in anxious and toilsome thought. 

Various formalities had had to be 
gone through, which had taken up a 
great part of the day ; a visit had also 
been made to Harold’s bedside, but 
the young man was still insensible, and 
could afford no comfort or advice to the 
vicar. Yet he knew that if he would 
do anything there was no time to be lost. 
Strange rumors were flying about the 
place; Dr. Endicott’s name was already 
bandied from lip to lip, but rather in 
wonderment at his non-appearance than 
in actual accusation. But there was no 
time to lose. The vicar had never in 
his life set law and justice at defiance; 
but he meant to do so now. 

Twilight was falling, and Stephen 


A SECOND TIME. 


243 


Endicott sat alone in his study. He 
knew what had taken place that morn- 
ing; he could not fail but be aware of 
it, for the whole village, and even his 
own household, buzzed and hummed 
with the news. At last he had shut 
himself up in his private room, and 
ordered that no one should come near. 

He was suffering the agonies of a 
great dread. He knew what would be 
found when the grave was opened that 
afternoon. But what he did not know 
was whether any proof of his own guilt 
existed still. It was possible that he had 
left some trace of his presence behind ; 
and that presently he should hear the 
tramp of the police constable at the 
door, and hear the words that arrested 
him on a charge of murder. He hardly 
considered how impossible it was that 
any such charge should be made at once. 
He did not stop to consider probabilities. 
He sat and waited, in a kind of dumb 
horror, with his hand on the revolver 
which he kept hidden in his desk ; for 
he was resolved that he would never be 
taken away alive. Better a suicide’s 
grave, he thought, than a felon’s cell. 

Someone came to the door at last — 
and knocked. 

“Who is there?’’ said Dr. Endicott. 

“Let me in, Endicott.’’ It was the 
vicar’s voice. “I want to speak to 
you.” 

“Are you alone?” 


244 dr. endicott’s experiment. 


“Yes, quite alone.” 

The doctor opened the door, and the 
clergyman entered the room. No words 
of greeting were uttered, and neither of 
the men held out a hand. But they 
looked once into each other’s face, and 
then half the tale was told. The doctor 
said something in a low tone: it sounded 
like an imprecation, and walked to his 
desk. The vicar followed him, and 
spoke in a subdued and careful voice. 

“You know, I am sure, what I have 
come to tell you. Endicott, I do not 
know how matters may turn out, but I 
fear that you stand in a position of con- 
siderable danger.” 

“How can that be?” said Stephen 
dryly. 

“You do not surely need me to tell 
you. Harold, poor boy, is prostrated — 
insensible. I do not know what line he 
means to take when he comes to him- 
self. I suppose he will have to send 
for Martin Dale — and then ” 

“Well?” said Dr. Endicott. “Do 
you think that his tale has any evi- 
dence?” 

“I do not know whether there is 
more evidence than this,” said the 
vicar. “But this is enough to — con- 
demn you, Stephen Endicott.” And 
he showed him something lying on his 
outstretched palm. 

The doctor looked at it with a paling, 
horror-stricken face. It was a locket 


A SECOND TIME. 


245 


and a fragment of gold chain — torn 
from his person in that last wild struggle 
with Harry Crawford, and ever after- 
ward hidden in his grave. The initials 
stamped upon the locket were “S. E.” ; 
and it held a small portrait of Dr. 
Endicott’s wife. There could be no 
doubt as to its original ownership. 

“You found it?” said Endicott at 
length. 

“I found it. No one else saw it. I 
have brought it to you.” 

“For what reason?” 

“Take it and keep it — destroy it, if 
you can,” said the vicar, almost 
fiercely. “Without it, there may be no 
direct evidence. Harold will silence 
Martin Dale, if he can ” 

“Do you know that you are your- 
selves committing a crime?” said the 
doctor, in his coldest, sternest voice. 

“I know. God forgive me! But it 
is for your daughter’s sake — and 
Harold’s. Surely you need not add 
this stain — this burden — to their inno- 
cent lives, I am certain that it was an 
accident — certain, or I would not act 
in this way. You would never have 
murdered your old friend; it was an 
accident.” 

The doctor’s face changed. For one 
moment he put his hands over his eyes; 
and when he took them away the vicar 
thought that they were wet. 

“God bless you, Wykeham!” he said 


246 DR. ENDICOTt's experiment. 


brokenly. “I thought nobody would 
believe me. Now that I find you do, 
I shall have strength to bear the rest. 
I will leave the matter in Harold’s 
hands. He shall judge whether I am 
guilty or not; and then I will — go 
away.” 

“Go away?” 

‘‘Yes, so as not to trouble any of you 
with my presence. You shall hear from 
me to-morrow, Wykeham. I will tell 
you then what I am going to do. And 
thank you a thousand times for coming 
to me. It was an accident — and I have 
repented in dust and ashes ever since. 
But you shall know all to-morrow. 
What! you will shake hands with me 
again? You are too good, Wykeham. 
If God forgives — but this is foolish- 
ness. Good-night — good-by.” 

The vicar departed with eyes that 
were strangely dim ; and the doctor sat 
down at his desk to write. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

A LETTER FROM THE DEAD. 

]UR. WYKEHAM was seated at the 
^ breakfast table next morning when 
his old servant, Rogers, who had been 
with him for the last thirty years, came 
in and stood beside his chair with such 


A LETTER FROM THE DEAD. 247 


a look of discomposure as immediately 
to enlist his master’s attention. 

“What is it, Rogers?” 

“There’s a woman here from the 
Manor House, sir. I’m afraid there’s 
something wrong with Dr. Endicott. I 
thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind see- 
ing her, for we can’t get a reasonable 
word out of her!” 

The vicar rose hurriedly. 

“What does this mean?’’ he ejacu- 
lated, half under his breath. And 
Cyril’s muttered exclamation of “Sui- 
cide! I expected it,” did not tend to 
raise his hopes. 

The woman from the Manor House 
was the cook and housekeeper, and the 
vicar found her weeping and rocking 
herself to and fro, in a somewhat hys- 
terical paroxysm of grief, 

“Oh, poor master! poor master! 
was all that at first she seemed able to 
say. 

“What is it, my good woman? What 
has happened to your master?” the 
vicar asked. 

“Oh, sir, he's gone ! He’s lying dead 
in the study. If you’d only come up to 
the house, sir, you’d see for yourself.” 

The vicar waited for no further 
particulars. He started at once for the 
Manor House, bidding Cyril come with 
him. And in an incredibly short space 
of time they stood in the room where, 
only the night before, he had held 


248 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


Stephen Endicott by the hand and heard 
him say that he would “go away.” 

“Go away!” Yes, he had gone — 
gone to a country from which there was 
no return. He could answer no ques- 
tions now. He could make no confes- 
son, submit to no punishment. He had 
gone to receive judgment from a higher 
tribunal than any in this ill-judging 
world. 

He was sitting in a high-backed arm- 
chair, before his desk, looking very 
much as though he were asleep. His 
eyes were closed, his head leaning 
against the woodwork of the chair. 
His face was perfectly placid .and 
emotionless. Indeed, as Mr. Wyke- 
ham looked at it, he seemed to see 
in the immobile features something 
of the nobleness, the calm, the lofty 
look, which Stephen Endicott’s face had 
been framed to wear, if his outer life 
had corresponded with that ideal which 
always exists in the inner heart of men. 

A phial, marked “Morphia — Poison,” 
lay before him. A spoon and measur- 
ing glass stood by. The manner of his 
death was plain. But was all the world 
to know? A letter lay beside the phial, 
addressed to the Rev. John Wykeham. 
The vicar looked at it wistfully. Had 
any eyes seen that letter but his own? 
It would be his duty, he knew, to pro- 
duce it at the coroner’s inquest, and — 
for the second time in twenty-four 


A LETTER FROM THE DEAD. 249 


hours — he did not do his duty. That 
is to say, he put the duty of charity 
higher than his allegiance to the law of 
the land. He slipped the letter into 
his pocket, and did not open it until he 
was quite alone. And this was not for 
some time ; for his next duty was to go 
away to the seaside town where Alice 
was staying, and break to her the news 
of her bereavement. It was a three 
hours’ journey, and the vicar read the 
letter in the train. He could not do 
it before, and he was resolved to read 
it before he met Alice Endicott. He 
thought that he should then know better 
what to say to her. 

He had a first-class carriage to him- 
self, and could peruse his letter without 
fear of disturbance. 

It was dated, he noticed, as carefully 
as usual, and written throughout in the 
doctor’s clear, precise, beautiful hand. 
And this was what it said : 

“My Dear Wykeham: 

“I trust that you will feel no offense 
if I still address you in the old familiar 
way. It is for the last time. You will 
not be troubled by me again. 

“It is almost a pleasure to me to 
reflect on this. And not only with 
respect to yourself. I feel with relief 
that I shall trouble no one any longer. 
To very many in this world my presence 
in it has brought sorrow, pain, misfor- 


250 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


tune of various kinds. They will be 
freed from these things now, and I trust 
that their curses will not follow me to 
the grave. 

“You may imagine that I have been 
brought very low before I could write 
in this way. Have you any idea of the 
hopes and aspirations with which I 
began my life? I was wild to do what 
I could for the human race; eager to 
alleviate pain and remove suffering; 
looking forward to a time when I should 
be a great healer and helper — longing 
to enroll my name among the great 
benefactors of the world. Jenner and 
Simpson and Lister were nothing to 
what I would be! You see the flaw 
easily enough? as I see it now. I 
thought myself animated only by the 
love of man, by the desire to lessen his 
suffering. I see now that, although I 
desired this, my motive-power was the 
love of fame, the love of power, the 
enthronement of self. Well, what 
matter? It is not so very bad a motive, 
is it? Many a man has gone through 
the world, guided by no higher aim, 
and has achieved for himself all that he 
desired. As for me, every effort that I 
have made seems to have failed; and I 
have brought the greatest suffering upon 
those that I have most deeply loved. 
Even Alice has suffered for my sake. 
Let it be my care now to see that she 
suffers no more through me, if any act 


A LETTER FROM THE DEAD. 25 I 


of mine will give her back the peace 
and happiness of which I have robbed 
her — poor little girl, poor little heart of 
mine! 

“Wykeham, I had no evil intent in 
my heart when I first came here to live. 
I wanted to save Mrs. Crawford’s life, 
to keep her from suffering, and give her 
back to her husband’s arms. You 
know what her husband was; an impul- 
sive, wrong-headed, impracticable man ; 
but he loved her, and she loved him. 
I wanted to see them happy again to- 
gether, and I did my best for her. 

“It is natural and easy to put the 
good, well-sounding motive first. Of 
course, that was not my only motive for 
coming down to Fenby. With some 
cases, I should not have taken half the 
trouble. But it happened to be a case 
that interested 'me; I thought it was 
likely to throw light on an obscure point 
about which I had not hitherto been 
able to make up my mind. It seemed 
to me that I was within reach of dis- 
covering a remedy for all cases of 
cancer, oancerous growths, and tumors — 
a remedy greatly needed, and which no 
one had hitherto been able to find. I 
did not, as you know, quite succeed in 
doing this; but I succeeded so nearly 
that I have had the satisfaction of curing 
case after case which other doctors had 
pronounced incurable. Is not that 
something to be glad and even proud 


252 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


of? And I did this chiefly through the 
light that I gained through Mrs, Craw- 
ford’s case. 

“I cured her, as you know. If she 
had lived six months longer, I should 
have been sure of that, without need of 
further examination. I was building 
great hopes on the result of those six 
months. I hoped to be able to say: 
‘Look at this case; here is a woman 
perfectly well and sound; and yet she 
was given up by the ordinary physicians 
of the day. This was my treatment — 
adopt it and you will save others as I 
have saved her,’ Think of what that 
would have meant to me just then! 

“But — she died. She was thrown 
out of a carriage, received fatal injuries, 
and died. My whole work was lost. If 
I cited her case, the answer would al- 
ways be: ‘Ah, yes! but she did not live 
long enough to prove anything. If she 
had lived a year or two without any 
trace or sign of disease, we would have 
acknowledged that she was cured ; but, 
as she died, we cannot tell.’ But there 
was one way in which we could tell — ^by 
an autopsy after death. My medical 
brethren would all ask me why this had 
not been made? and do you think that 
they would have believed me when I 
said that I could not make it because of 
her husband’s refusal to permit such a 
thing? Not they! 

“You see my difficulty. Crawford 


A LETTER FROM THE DEAD. 253 


would not see it — would not acknowl- 
edge that it mattered in the least. We 
had a quarrel on the subject; and he 
virtually turned me out of the house. I 
had no feeling of loyalty to our old 
friendship left me after that: he had 
thrown it away, and I was bound to him 
no longer. It seemed perfectly right 
and natural to me that I should take my 
own way. But, perhaps, I should not 
have managed the matter, but for the 
help of Martin Dale, who hissed his 
suggestion in my ear like the serpent 
that he was, and egged me on to the 
commission of a crime which he him- 
self was too cowardly to carry through. 

“It was on the night after the funeral 
that he and I went to the churchyard. 
I need not give you the painful details 
of that scene. Suffice it to say that our 
object was attained, and that we were 
preparing to remove that still fair and 
beautiful body from its resting place, 
when Harry Crawford bore down upon 
us, mad and blind with rage. He 
struck me, and I struck back. Martin 
Dale fled, at the first sound of blows. 
For two or three minutes Harry and I 
wrestled together, forgetful of everything 
but our wild, instinctive anger; and 
finally he fell. Fell and lay still — I 
shall never forget how still. I called 
to him, I tried to revive him ; I do not 
know how long a time I spent in agoniz- 
ing, fruitless efforts to bring him back 


254 DR- endicott's experiment. 


to life; but it was all in vain. I had 
killed the friend of my youth by my 
hasty blow. I was another Cain — a 
murderer, an outcast and a wanderer 
from henceforth on the face of the 
earth. 

“No, that I vowed to myself I would 
not be. 1 would hide every trace of the 
murder, if murder it was, and lead the 
life that I had always led. It was an 
accident, I told myself; and I would 
not be treated as a felon because of this 
hasty blow. But what should I do with 
Harry Crawford’s dead body? The 
answer was plain. I would place it in 
his wife’s grave and bury her elsewhere 
— afterward. 

“I carried out my plan. I placed 
him in the grave, heedless, however, of 
the broken chain and locket, which must 
have fallen upon him as I arranged the 
coverings above his lifeless body, and 
which would have been held as a sure 
witness to my crime, had they been dis- 
covered where they lay. I did all that 
I had planned to do. I carried Mrs. 
Crawford’s body to my laboratory, I 
filled in the grave, smoothed it, replaced 
the wreaths of flowers which served to 
hide my imperfect handiwork, then went 
home again, shut myself into the labora- 
tory, and did my work. 

“The strain was awful. Several 
times I thought I should break down 
while I was in the midst of it. But the 


A LETTER FROM THE DEAD. 255 


Strength of my will, I suppose, or the 
strength of my ambition, bore me 
through. I examined the tissues, sepa- 
rated nerve from nerve, made my notes 
of the case, and used the microscope 
with as much calmness as if I had been 
in the dissecting room of a London 
hospital. And my examination proved 
that my theories had been correct. The 
disease was cured — gone ; not a trace of 
it remained. I had gained the first real 
triumph of my life — but at what a cost ! 

“Martin Dale’s disappearance gave 
me a great deal of anxiety. True, he 
had absconded with some of my money, 
which caused me to hope that it would 
be long before he dared show his face 
here again ; but I was not free from the 
fear that he would try to blackmail me, 
or would otherwise molest me in after 
years. In this fear, as it now turns out, 
I was perfectly justified. But for him, 
Harold Crawford would never have set on 
foot the proceedings which have resulted 
in the discovery of his father’s body 
and of my crime. My death, therefore, 
lies at Martin Dale’s door. I will never 
live to see disgrace. And disgrace can- 
not be obviated if I live. Possibly, 
when I am dead, the facts may be kept 
at least from Alice’s ears; and those 
who know them will extend pity to me 
rather than execration. 

“You will ask me what I did with 
Mrs. Crawford’s body. I gave it rever- 


256 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


ent and careful burial in my own garden. 
You remember the cairn of stones out- 
side my study window? It is there that 
Lilian Crawford lies. You will take 
her up and lay her at her husband’s 
side, I suppose? If I might express a 
wish, I should wish to be laid near 
them; but their son may object to this. 
After all, they were my only friends. 
And I did not mean to injure them, 
though it has been my fate to do so, 
and I continued the injury to their son. 
I have done the best for Harold in 
many ways that I could possibly do, 
and I ask his forgiveness for the rest. 
Perhaps in some other world I shall be 
able to ask his mother’s forgiveness too. 

“There is one point which I must 
not forget. It has reference to Harold’s 
proposal for my daughter’s hand. I 
refused it — what else could I do? — but 
the reason given for my refusal was not 
a true one. You must tell Harold this. 
It was the only colorable pretext I could 
think of for declining his offer. As a 
matter of fact, I believe him to possess 
a perfectly pure and sound constitution, 
and the disease from which his mother 
suffered was not one which was likely to 
leave the slightest taint in him. There 
is no reason why he should not marry, 
and let the name of Crawford go down 
for generations yet to come. I never 
met before with a young man who took 
the medical opinion I gave him so seri- 


A LETTER FROM THE DEAD. 257 


ously. I expected him to laugh it to 
scorn, and to regard it as an old doc- 
tor’s fad. But to my immense surprise, 
he looked upon it almost as gravely as 
I should have done myself, had it been 
true. I was sorry for the pain I gave 
him — but I saw no other way of placing 
a barrier between Alice and himself. 

“That barrier is gone. I think it 
right to take it down before I go hence. 
But I have perhaps erected one still 
greater, and more insuperable. It may 
be so. I see how terrible is the position 
of a man who loves the daughter of his 
father’s murderer: it is one which has 
been treated by novelist, poet, drama- 
tist, and always treated in the same 
way — with the inevitable moral that the 
children suffer for their father’s sins. 

“Must they? I do not know. You 
will be able to advise them better than 
I. But I will beg Harold Crawford to 
remember that, if motives go for any- 
thing, my motives were not altogether 
bad. I wanted to advance the cause 
of science, as well as my own good. If 
I struck Harry Crawford, it was because 
he struck me first, and self-defense is 
not a crime. No stain of willful mur- 
der rests upon my soul to blight my 
daughter’s life. 

“Certainly, no willful murderer could, 
I think, have suffered more than I. 
From that moment forward my enjoy- 
ment of life was gone. The zest of 


258 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


my researches, the delight of my suc- 
cess^ — these were over. All that I had 
left was a pricking consciousness of 
wrong, a haunting fear, a weight of con- 
cealment. Many a time I wished that 
I had boldly avowed the deed, and 
taken the consequences. Ruin, shame, 
public disgrace, imprisonment, would 
have been as nothing to the pangs I 
have borne, and shall always have to 
bear, until Death puts an end to all. 

‘ ‘But Death, you will tell me, is not 
the end. Well, be it so. Wherever I 
am going, I can know nothing worse 
than the last few months of my life 
have been. A sin which is known and 
repented of and punished — severe as 
the punishment may be — is robbed of 
half its weight. I would to God that 
I had not shirked the penalty in this 
life — but part of it at least has been 
mine. 

“Good-by, old friend. I thank you 
for your kindness to me and mine. 
You will be a better father to Alice than 
I have been. You will give my love to 
her, and shield her as much as possible 
from the knowledge of my unworthiness. 

“Stephen Endicott.” 

The vicar’s eyes filled with tears as 
he laid the letter down. 

“Poor Endicott!” he said to himself. 
“He has paid a heavy price. And how 
am I to tell Alice that he has gone?” 


IN SPITE OF ALL. 


259 


But he had very little need to put his 
story into words. When once she had 
looked into his pitying face, she knew 
what he had come to say. 


CHAPTER XX. 


IN SPITE OF ALL. 



than twelve months had passed 


since the day of Stephen Endicott’s 
death: more than twelve months since 
the interment of Harry Crawford and his 
wife in one grave, with their old friend 
almost at their feet. The vicar had 
carried out Dr. Endicott’s wishes as to 
his place of burial, although he had not 
been able to consult Harold on the 
subject. Harold was then too ill to 
be consulted about anything. He 
came back to life through a long and 
tedious convalescence, and it was not 
until he was growing strong again that 
Mr. Wykeham put the doctor’s letter 
into his hands, and left him alone to 
read it. 

When he came back Harold was still 
lying on the couch where he had been 
resting when the vicar gave him the 
letter, but his face was turned away. 
Mr. Wykeham sat down beside him 
and waited. 

“Why did you not show me this 


26 o dr. endicott’s experiment. 


before?” the young man asked at 
length. 

‘‘I hardly thought you were strong 
enough to read it, my dear boy.” 

“Strong enough!” And he turned 
round to face the vicar with a new 
brightness in his eyes. “Don’t you see 
that this will give me fresh strength to 
go on again? I shall get better now.” 

The vicar did not altogether under- 
stand; but he thought it advisable to 
await explanation until it should be 
offered him. And his patience was 
rewarded, for Harold finally spoke again. 

“I suppose that people might say 
that it was unnatural in one to feel as 
much pity as I do for Dr. Endicott.” 

“No, I think not, my dear lad,” said 
the vicar mildly. “I think that if ever 
a man deserved pity, it was Stephen 
Endicott.” 

“Yes,” said Harold hesitatingly. 
“Only — I’ve felt it all along. I felt 
somehow that his life could not be all a 
lie. I believed, in spite of appearances, 
that there must be a great deal of good' 
in the man who worked as hard as he 
did for the suffering and the needy. 
I’ve never guessed until lately how 
much good he did in town — attending 
cases without pay, and giving his great 
skill to the poorest patients. And when, 
at first, I knew what he had done 
here — and thought that it had all been 
in malice and wickedness — I lost belief 


IN SPITE OF ALL. 


261 


in him, and everything seemed confused 
— and there was no good and no evil, 
and no balance in things. Do you 
understand?” 

“I think I do.” 

‘‘Well, now that I have read his 
letter, the balance seems straight again. 
I see that his life was not happy and 
successful, as it looked. I suppose — in 
fact” — and the words stumbled a little 
on his lips, for Harold was not accus- 
tomed to talking of his deeper convic- 
tions — *‘I suppose that God — does 
look after that, and pays back in his 
own way.” 

‘‘ ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay,’ ” 
the vicar murmured. ‘‘There is no 
need of our vengeance, then, Harold.” 

‘‘No, nor even of our enemity, ” said 
the young man quietly. ‘‘That is what 
I mean.” 

‘‘You can forgive him?” 

‘‘I think my mother and father must 
have done so. Don’t you? Well, then, 
I’ve no right to do anything else. And 
the man’s dead.” 

There was a little silence, after which 
Harold roused himself to speak more 
practically. 

‘‘I have cleared my mind now,” he 
said, ‘‘and so I can ask about some 
other things. Did the whole story 
come out at the inquest or not?” 

‘‘There was no evidence to connect 
Dr. Endicott with your father’s death. 


262 DR, ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


The finding of your dear mother’s grave 
had not become public property when 
the inquest on your father’s body was 
held, and therefore no accusation was 
ever brought — formally, that is to say. 
Probably, if Br. Endicott had lived, and 
the matter had been pressed, it would 
all have been found out. But the jury 
here is not remarkable for keenness 
of wit, and the whole thing fell to the 
ground.” 

“People talked, I suppose?” 

“A great deal. No doubt most 
people believe that Dr. Endicott was 
responsible. His death made him look 
guiltier than he was. For although the 
jury brought it in ‘Accidental death 
through an overdose of morphia, ’ every- 
body believed it to be suicide. The 
matter rests, however, ‘Not proven’ in 
law. ’ ’ 

“This letter, then — it was not pro- 
duced in court?” 

“No,” said the vicar. “I was not 
asked about it, and did not choose to 
volunteer the information. I may have 
been wrong; but I thought it better to 
save Dr. Endicott’s reputation as far 
as I could, if only for his daughter’s 
sake.”' 

It was his first reference to Alice. 
Harold’s face twitched a little, but he 
only said: 

“She does not know, then?” 

“She knows nothing,” said the vicar. 


IN SPITE OF ALL. 


263 


“Don’t tell her,” said Harold, with 
a start. “She had better never know. 
She loved her father dearly.” 

And then he turned his face to the 
wall again, and said no more. When 
next he opened his lips it was to ask 
questions about German towns, and to 
send for an atlas in order that he might 
map out a foreign tour. 

But that was more than twelve months 
ago. It was not summer weather now. 
Christmas was over, the New Year had 
begun; the January frosts were merg- 
ing into the warmer airs of February. 
Already the snowdrop had put up its 
fair white head, and the purple crocus 
shadowed the golden glories of its yellow 
mate. In the churchyard, which was 
sheltered from the north and east, the 
green grass was spangled with these 
early blossoms, and the trees that waved 
their branches above Lilian Crawford’s 
grave were showing signs of budding 
life. Spring was coming early, and the 
wind blew softly from the west, with 
hints of primrose and violet perfume in 
its breath. 

It was on a Saturday afternoon when 
Alice Endicott came slowly up the lane, 
entered the churchyard, and walked 
toward her father’s grave. She had a 
basket on her arm, filled with spring 
flowers, which she had woven together 
with tenderest skill. She laid it on the 
ground, and knelt for a brief space 


264 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


beside the grave, with hands clasped as 
if in prayer. Was she praying for the 
dead? She hardly knew. But mixed 
with her aspirations and hopes for those 
who were gone before, there was a 
stronger vein of hope and prayer for 
one who was still on earth, and was still, 
as he would ever be, dearer than all the 
world to her. 

And someone, watching and waiting 
in the lane, wondered if she thought of 
him. 

By and by she rose, and took the 
flowers from her basket. There was a 
wreath of snowdrops and ivy for Lilian’s 
grave; and one of golden and purple 
crocuses for Lilian’s husband. But on 
her father’s grave, with a touch of half- 
unconscious symbolism, she placed a 
cross of deep red blossoms plucked from 
a plant of pyrus japonica that grew 
against the Vicarage wall. 

For Alice was living at the Vicarage, 
more, as a daughter than a guest. Her 
paid companion had been dismissed. 
The Manor House was empty, and she 
found occupation and interest in the 
affairs of the parish, where indeed she 
soon became Mrs. Wykeham’s right 
hand. She had been there ever since 
the day of her father’s funeral, and it 
seemed to her almost like her rightful 
home. 

The watcher drew more close. He 
had not seen her for many a long day. 


IN SPITE OF ALL. 


265 


and he wanted to feast his eyes upon 
her now. 

She had never been so very robust- 
looking, he thought ; but she was white 
and slender now as the snowdrops that 
she had laid upon his mother’s grave. 
Her hair was golden and shining as ever; 
it looked like an aureole about her sweet, 
fine face. Were angels more beautiful? 
thought Harold, unconscious of pro- 
fanity, as he gazed unseen at his lost 
love. But was she lost? He did not 
mean to lose her if he could help it — now. 

The last flower was adjusted, and 
Alice turned to go. A bend in the 
path brought her face to face with 
Harold Crawford, who entered at that 
moment by the wicket* gate. If she 
could, she would have flown, but there 
was no place whither she could fly. She 
turned deeply red, and then very pale, 
but made no further movement. Per- 
haps, she thought, Harold would not 
care to speak to her. But he came 
steadily forward and held out his hand, 
into which she timidly placed her own. 
Hers was very cold — perhaps from con- 
tact with the flowers and wet moss — and 
he longed to retain it between his own. 
But after a moment’s lingering, she 
drew it away; and they stood together 
without speaking in the pathway beside 
the graves. 

“I have just come back,” he said, in 
hurried and rather uncertain tones. 


266 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


She lifted her sweet eyes to his face 
for a moment, but did not speak. 
There was something in her throat that 
forbade her to articulate a word. 

“I am glad to have found you here,” 
he went on. And then, as if moved by 
the same instinct, they both turned and 
looked at his mother’s grave. ‘‘Do you 
remember when I came home before, 
and found you putting flowers into the 
vases in my mother’s room? And 
now you are laying them upon her 
grave.” 

“I always loved her,” she said; and 
there were tears in her voice. 

‘‘She loved you, too,” he answered. 

His words seemed to break the ice 
of constraint which hung about her. 

‘‘O Harold,” she said, bursting into 
tears, ‘‘if you can but forgive ” 

‘‘I forgave long ago,” he answered. 
‘‘Did not Mr. Wykeham tell you that?” 

‘‘He has not talked to me of you.” 

‘‘Then I must talk to you of myself. 
Alice, I have a great deal to say.” 

‘‘No, no!” she said, shrinking away 
from him. ‘‘There is nothing for you 
to say — above all, here.” 

‘‘This is just the place above all 
others in which I should choose to say 
it. First, let me speak of myself. You 
know the reason which your father gave 
for refusing his consent to our engage- 
ment?” 

She bowed her head. 


IN SPITE OF ALL. 


267 


“That reason no longer holds good. 
He left a letter telling me that he had 
been — mistaken. He did, indeed, 
Alice. Why do you look at me so dis- 
trustfully? He took away his veto. 
He gave me a virtual permission to ask 
you again to be my wife. He showed 
most distinctly that he would have been 
pleased to think of me as your hus- 
band.” 

“Can I — can I see the letter?” she 
murmured. “It seems so unlike my 
father.” 

“Darling, the letter was not mine. 
It has been destroyed. But I assure 
you that I am speaking the truth. Do 
you not believe me?” 

“Oh, yes; it is not that — but ” 

“Well, dear, what?” 

“I can never be your wife, Harold.” 

“Why not?” he asked. 

He looked her steadily in the face, 
and her eyes drooped beneath his gaze. 
Willingly would she have kept silence; 
but she saw that his determination to 
have an answer was one that could not 
be lightly set aside. With stammering 
lips and tear-wet eyes, she tried to put 
her reason into words. 

“I did not know, until lately,” she 
said, “the story of your father’s death.” 

“And is that all?” 

“O Harold, it cannot be a slight 
thing to know how your father died.” 

“No, my sweet, anything but that. 


268 DR. endicott’s experiment. 


And yet I ask you once more — is that 
all?” 

“I have read the whole story in the 
newspapers — about my poor father’s 
desire to investigate — everything” — she 
did not know how to put her meaning 
into words — “and about your mother, 
Harold ; and the whole web of treachery 
and deceit in which my father was 
involved, and — I cannot feel it right 
that I shall ever be your wife.” 

“But, Alice, the story cannot be in 
the newspapers, because nobody knows 
it entirely except the vicar and me.” 

“People drew conclusions, I sup- 
pose,” she said sadly, “and their con- 
clusions seem to be true. You cannot 
deny it.” 

“No,” he said, very gravely, “I can- 
not deny it. We had better face the 
truth, and see what comes of it, Alice, 
you and I. Your father did the things 
that he is reported to have done. For 
his own ends he took the body of my 
mother out of the grave, and struck the 
blow that laid my father in its place. 
In his last hours he wrote a letter — the 
one I have mentioned to you — telling 
the whole truth and asking for my for- 
giveness. And, Alice, I have granted 
it.” 

Her lips quivered, but she did not 
speak. 

“I have granted it, not only because 
he asked it, but because I feel that his 


IN SPITE OF ALL. 


269 


sufferings were greater than the world 
will ever know, and also because I be- 
lieve my father’s death to have been the 
result of pure accident. And I want to 
know why we two should spoil our lives 
because of what our parents did? I 
will not submit to any such morbid 
and superstitious fancy. Even if your 
father had killed mine, Alice, knowingly 
and willfully, instead of accidentally; 
even then, if we two loved each other, it 
would be better that we should marry 
and atone to each other for our parents’ 
sins and errors than languish out our 
lives apart. What reason is there, in 
reality, why we should not be man and 
wife?” 

“The world would say that we were 
callous, unfeeling, wickedly indifferent.” 

‘‘Let the world say what it likes,” 
said Harold, taking her hand in his, “so 
that we know it is a mistake.” 

‘‘But it will be so hard for you to 
bear!” 

“Do you think it will be easier for 
me to live apart from the one woman in 
the world whom I can love?” 

‘‘O Harold, but do you think it right? 
As you say, let us forget what the world 
thinks, but ought we — ought we ” 

‘‘My dearest,” said Harold, with 
deep feeling in his voice. ‘‘I believe 
that if they — they whose graves are here 
before »us — can see and hear us now, 
they will feel that your father’s errors 


270 DR. ENDICOTT’s experiment. 


could not be more blessedly atoned than 
by the union of his child to the son of 
the friends whom he injured in this life. 
Look at the matter from the higher 
point of view, and I think you will see 
with me. Our love, dear, and our hap- 
piness shall make that sad and wretched 
story fade into oblivion. Think — if he 
can see you now — whether he would 
like to know that we were condemned 
to a life of unhappiness because of his 
error, his sin ; would not that be a ter- 
rible punishment for him to bear? Let 
us wipe out the consequences of his 
action, as far as we can, by leading a 
good and happy life in spite of it." 

She let her head droop against his 
shoulder, and he knew that the day was 
won. But she made a protest still. 

“I must ask the vicar what he 
thinks," she murmured. 

‘T can tell you exactly what he thinks. 
It was he who wrote to me to come 
home; it was he who sent me to you 
now." 

"But what will people say?" 

"Nothing; because they know nothing 
definitely. The story is but a rumor, 
which will die out the sooner because of 
our union, Alice, dear. Will you not be 
brave, and bear even the world’s disap- 
proval for my sake? or don’t you love 
me well enough for that?" 

"0 Harold," she said, "I love you 
better than all the world beside. But I 


IN SPITE OF ALL. 


271 


was thinking of you — I was afraid for 
you ’ ’ 

“And even for me, my darling, you 
must be strong. I shall care for noth- 
ing, if only I have you to walk beside 
me all my life, and to make the happi- 
ness of my dear old home.” 

“If love can make you happy,” she 
said softly, “you shall never have 
reason to complain.” 

And then they walked away from the 
graves which held the tragedy of those 
three lives — walked away, hand in hand, 
with smiles upon their lips, but tears 
still within their eyes. Not in their 
highest happiness could they forget the 
past. But the grass grows green in the 
springtime, even over graves; and the 
mounds are half-hidden by coronals of 
flowers. And the cross of scarlet blos- 
soms glistens in the twilight upon the 
suicide’s grave. 


THE END. 



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1. Mademoiselle Ixe. By Lanoe Falconer. 

2. The Story of Eleanor Lambert. By Magda- 

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3. A Mystery of the Campagna, and A Shadow 

on the Wave. By Von Degen. 

4. The Friend of Death. Adapted from the 

Spanish by Mary J. Serrano. 

5. Philippa; or, Under a Cloud. By Ella. 

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By Lanoe Falconer. 

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9. European Relations. By Talmage Dalin. 

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11. Through the Red-Litten Windows, and The 

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12. Back from ^e Dead. A Story of the Stage. 

By Saqui ^nith. 

13. In Tent and Bungalow. By “An Idle 

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14. The Sinner’s Comedy. By John Oliver 

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15. The Wee Widow’s Cruise in Quiet Waters. 

By “An Idle Exile.” 

£ 


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19. Gentleman Upcott’s Daughter. By Tom 

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21. Her Heart was True. By “ An Idle Exile.” 

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23. A Study in Temptations. By John Oliver 

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24. The Palimpsest. By Gilbert Augustin 

Thierry. 

25. Squire Heilman, and Other Stories. By 

Juhani Aho. 

26. A Father of Six. By N. E. Potape^ko. 

27. The Two Countesses. By Marie Ebner von 

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28. God’s Will, and Other Stories. By Use 
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29. Her Provincial Cousin. By Edith Elmer 

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31. Young Sam and Sabina. By Tom Cobbleigh. 

32. Chaperoned. By Albert Ulmann. 

33. Wanted, a Copyist. By W. N. Brearley. 

34. A Bundle ot Life. By John Oliver Hobbes. 

35. The Lone Inn. By Fergus Hume. 

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37. The Beautiful Soul. By Florence Marryat. 

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Should She Have Left Him? 

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HEAVENLY TWINS. 

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